The Mandylion Saga Part Three: Memories
by Jizena
Summary: Continued from Part 2. The battle begins! Tak sets her new army against Dib's Corporation; family ties come into play; Zim struggles with the memories contained within his PAK & the fight for his soul, & secrets begin to unravel. M for language/violence.
1. Invasion 1: First Attack

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**Author's Note:**

HELLO EVERYONE! Welcome back, welcome back! Sorry for the late start (I was simply unable to start this up last night), but much, much better late than never… because I bring you…

_Part Three: Memories!_

Thank you all so much for your support of the story so far~! I've been saying for a while that this is my favorite part, and, well… I'm excited! Welcome to all new readers, too~! ^^ Please be sure to check out _Time__Warp__Factor__Five_ and the first two parts of the _Mandylion__Saga:__Changes_ and _Transitions,_ before diving into this part, since it literally picks right back up where we left off.

When we left off in _Transitions,_ secrets were finally starting to be told, and Zim learned the truth behind one of Tallest Red's greatest lies: his partner was originally human. Dib and Gaz still struggle somewhat with their background, and Zim has earned the second quarter of his soul…

I will hopefully be updating on Fridays again this month! ^^ I apologize for yesterday, but working in the theatre, you never know when you'll be pulling super late nights. So what I will strive to do instead is update on Friday afternoons~! Yay!

So, again, welcome, and enjoy~ :3

_Invader__Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

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**Invader Zim:**

**~The Mandylion Saga~**

**~_Part __Three: __Memories_~**

_Zim's Records_

The fact that most of the life I knew up to that moment was a lie became even clearer to me as I stood dumbfounded in front of the Tallest. Everything I had been told, even in witnesses' prosecutions against me during a trial I had gone through not long ago, was slowly being re-written. Everyone had always taken advantage of my black hole of a memory, and had filled it with false information. I could not recall a single scene they'd told me of during the trial, and therefore I foolishly accepted all that was told to me as the truth. I still did not know what had caused me to wipe my memory in the first place, so long ago, but now more than ever I wanted to know everything.

I had been living peacefully in the lie until I had gained a conscience, the side effect of being human and having earned a small piece of a soul. With a human conscience, I was more aware of everything, and more skeptical. I saw myself and what I knew of my past in a different way, and even during the Incident, I was beginning to wonder whether or not everything I had been told of the first several decades of my life was an elaborate lie.

Even after that sixty year mark, things were hazy. One of the advantages to being Irken is having impeccable memorization skills; every bit of an Irken's past is stored in a backup disc in their PAKs. Apparently, I'd done such a wonderful job at suppressing my memory that the disc in my Irken PAK had been wiped completely clean, with no other known backup stimulator that could recover the memory files... until now. It was remembering on its own.

I wondered if it knew anything about a human named Ira.

Had I known of a time when there was no Tallest Purple? It wasn't long ago that Red rose to power, but it was during that point in time at which my mind had still been quite cloudy, so it took me longer during those years to redevelop my senses. I had most likely been tricked into thinking Purple and Red had always ruled together; even during the trial I'd undergone, I was told that Purple was there with Red during different parts of my past... my first experience on Devastis, for example, or the first training academy on Irk. That, just like almost everything else I had been told up until recently, was nothing more than an elaborate lie.

But this was something much different from any lie I'd been told before. This was something Red and 'Purple' had been telling the _entire__Irken__population_ for years.

Red's unchanging expression told me that the last words he had spoken were the absolute truth, and he did not intend to tell me anything beyond what he had already said. Still, I wanted desperately to find out just what had happened to Purple—no... Ira. Who was he? When had he, as a human, come to the Empire? And, more than that, why was he not only Irken, but a _Tallest_ now?

My hands were trembling as I clenched them into fists, my teeth grinding together and my eyes watering. I glared up at Red, whose eyes gleamed brightly behind his thin, rectangular glasses. "Red..." I began. My voice was shaking, and it scared me, just how frightened I sounded. I was losing my grip on all that I had considered reality, and Red's usual demeanor was doing nothing to help me cope with that. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to _yell_ at him about, but all that came out at that point was the question, "Why?"

Red looked ready to answer, but all of a sudden, from outside, there was a rumbling, almost like the prelude to an earthquake, and then an audible explosion. I perked back up after that, recognizing the pattern of the attack. Silent but effective, it was exactly the kind of attack Tak had been talking to me about once, back when I had joined forces with her. It was the style of the old Elite, she'd told me. I'd love it, she'd told me. Well, now I absolutely despised it, and despised myself for, when she had mentioned the attack to me, just shrugging and saying, "Sure, whatever." Now, I'd gone along with a lot of what she had said, even helped her in several respects, but the actual modes of attacks were things I'd not paid as much attention to. Nice going.

Red whirled and rushed through the room toward the door, and I followed close behind. As he flung the door open, Red shouted out that name, so new to my ears, as if he'd been using it all along: "Ira!"

Standing not far from the door was the supposed Tallest, frozen as he looked out at the scene laying before us all. "Sh—" Red began, stumbling back. He was absolutely furious.

While none of us had expected it, Tak had launched the first attack. Just as I thought, though... she'd gone straight for the heart—she'd come straight to the Corporation. This was her ultimate goal. The rest of Earth would just be a consolation prize to her. The _Massive_ itself was nowhere to be seen, but a myriad of Shuvvers, Spittle Runners, and Viral Tanks (among the best-armored vehicles the Irken Army had to offer) had landed around the perimeter of the grounds of the complex, and several soldiers were standing in wait. _Shit..._ I thought. Dib had secured the entire perimeter... but nobody had thought to build any kind of shield _above_ us.

Standing on top of one of the Spittle Runners were two Irkens in human guise. I couldn't tell, from this far away, whether or not they were in hologram, or in temp forms granted by the Cabochon. Either way, they were convincing. One of them seemed, in human form, quite young... but he was tall, slim, and on guard. Definitely a soldier. The other was very short, in comparison, and bulkier than I'd expect any Irken in hologram to be. The extra weight he carried didn't seem to stop him from preparing for a strong attack, though. Well. No doubt those were the two that Tak had put in charge of the attack. And no doubt they were Invaders. Possibly part of the new Elite.

All I could think of to say in response to the current situation was just simply, "Fuck."

Slowly, Red moved toward his partner, and I followed in a daze, taking in just how many Irkens were currently surrounding us. None of them seemed to recognize me, which was very good on my part, but 'Purple' was getting a few glares.

"Ira," Red said as calmly as he could manage. _Jeez,__that__'__s__really__his__name,__huh?_ I thought to myself. It was weird to hear Red saying it so freely. And kind of frightening, as I couldn't begin to fathom what this man could possibly have done to receive the 'punishment' of becoming an Irken Tallest. "We're going back in. Now."

"They know me," Ira whispered, his purple eyes staring vacantly forward. "They know I'm not dead..."

"That's why we're going back inside!" Red hissed.

"They're going to kill us..."

"No, they're not, dammit, come on!" Firmly, Red grabbed Ira by the arm, nodded toward me, and backed up into the main building. Casting a look back at the Irken Army, I followed him again. Once back inside, Red heaved out a harsh sigh and turned Ira to face him. "You just _stood_ there?" he reprimanded, practically spitting out his words.

"It's out," Ira said, ignoring Red's accusation, his head down. "That's it, I'm done for. If they don't kill me, the Control Brains will still punish me, won't they?" Raising his head to look up hatefully at Red, his eyes clouded with tears, he spat, "I shouldn't have said anything! Now I'm never going to be myself again, am I? I'm never going to be able to return home, I'm never going to see Lisa again!"

Unemotionally, Red struck Ira across the face. "Shut up," he said firmly.

Outraged at the action he'd taken, I whirled Red around to face me, wanting to at least put my two cents in. "What the hell are you doing?" I barked, angrier than ever at my leader. "In case you didn't notice, _Red,_ there's a shit-fuck-ton of Irkens out there and all you can think of is your own little personal battle? Save it, Red, we're gonna go fight them."

Red grabbed me by the collar and pulled me up a little so that I was on my toes and eye-to-eye with him. I clawed at his hands, trying to pry them away from my neck. "You're a fucking Irken, too, you know!" he shouted, his sharp, Irken-red eyes burning into me. "How _dare_ you speak the name of our race with such hatred in your voice? You aren't human yet, Zim, remember that!"

"What the hell is going on out there?"

I used that opportunity to shove away from Red, then turned to see who had spoken. It was Dib, with Lex and Victor Haynsworth, Nacea, and Gaz all standing behind him. Dib had obviously sensed something, as he now had his sword strapped in a belt around his waist, his right hand on the hilt, ready to draw at any moment.

"Get Brakem and the others," I instructed, grabbing my winter-durable, grey SEC armed forces coat off of the multi-pegged hanger on the wall near the door. "We need to have a branch at every end of the complex; the Irkens are here, and they've got us surrounded."

Dib's eyes widened. "The _fuck?_ How did they get here so quickly?"

"I didn't even hear anything!" Gaz cried, looking alarmed. I noticed that she, too, had grabbed her weapons and was ready to attack. "And they're on all sides?"

"It's an old Elite battle sequence," Red explained, finally having calmed down. Ira was choosing to stay out of the conversation, and, at present, I did not blame him. "When I was in the Elite, we were drilled on this. It's possible to shut the engines of our ships down enough to make them completely silent, and, add cloaking devices on top of that, you can begin an attack and have the upper hand in a matter of minutes."

"Great," Dib muttered, slapping a hand to his forehead. "We're dealing with intergalactic ninjas. Just perfect."

"Being on land will slow them down though," Red said, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder, as though he could see through the walls and out onto what was becoming a battlefield.

"Plus," I added, "if we can drive them toward the lake, we've got a definite advantage."

"All right," Dib sighed. "Nacea, find Brakem and tell him to assemble his army. Lex, Victor, grab your gear and meet us out there. You two are some of the best fighters we've got." Those given instructions nodded and set off... Nacea in the direction of the Board room, Lex and her father in the direction of Victor's office. "Zim," Dib continued, "get to the dojo, I think Tenn is there. While you're at it, get yourself a weapon, you're going to need it. Grab a couple for the Tallest, too. You think you can make it there without?"

"I can manage," I grinned, cracking my knuckles. To be honest... yeah, it was a sudden attack, but I was kind of ready. When I thought about it, this was the first time I'd be fighting for Earth _against_ the primary problem. Lard Nar's fate was still disturbing me, and there was no telling whether or not I'd experience a blackout (please, God, no, I kept begging...), but against Tak, I'd always be ready. I'd always have a bit of fight in me, if it meant being one step closer to bringing that bitch down.

"Good. Red, Purple," Dib finished—and I had no idea if he saw Ira tense and shudder, as I had—"you two come with me, and we'll attempt to reason with them before we start in on any attacks."

"Uh—" Red began, looking over at his partner.

Ira drew in a long breath and straightened, then removed his overshirt, throwing it to the side. He messed with his hair a little, brushing it out with his fingers and flicking his long purple bangs out of his eyes, then swiftly twisted his elastic around the longer black part again. "I'd like to explain later, Red," he said calmly, yanking at his hair to secure the low ponytail. "For now, let's just get this over with."

"Zim," Dib said firmly to me, motioning that I should follow him out as he walked to the door, "come with us for now, then go off to the dojo, all right? I'm trusting you not to turn on us in this."

"I'm on your side," I reassured him.

That said, the four of us, once Red, Ira and Dib had each claimed a coat to combat the cold, walked back out onto the main battlefield. There was still a fair amount of daylight left in the cloudy sky, and a frost that could potentially be to our advantage clung to the ground. The Irkens hadn't made a move yet. They were playing by old Elite rules, it seemed. They were waiting for a signal to attack, and it seemed that that signal was just about to be given. The two Irkens in hologram, standing atop the Spittle Runner, glanced over at us, and the shorter one gave a signal to his taller companion, who nodded and evanesced, only to reappear directly in front of us.

He was only about two inches shorter than me, with wild red-orange hair and the same ice blue eyes as Tenn. There were several Irkens in human guise surrounding us, I noticed, and all of them wore simple grey and green uniforms, but this particular soldier was wearing something considerably different. He was dressed in red and black—a red, multi-zippered, long-sleeved jacket, black pants and steel-toed boots. Both of his ears was pierced with a small gold hoop, and he wore a leather cuff on each wrist.

I knew that I had been instructed to go immediately to the dojo, but something was upsetting me about this soldier. Aside from the fact that his hair was a little longer, and obviously a different color, and factoring in that, if he was human, he'd be a little younger than me... still, it was unnerving. He looked a lot like me. The shape of his eyes, even the way his mouth curved upward into a smirk when he stepped closer to the four of us.

"So," he said, directing his words at Dib, "you're the famed Dib Membrane." His voice was so familiar, but I was too concentrated on wondering why we looked similar to put my finger on who he actually was. "Rumor has it you're trying to rise to power in our world."

"I'm willing to reason with you," Dib affirmed, standing his ground against the Irken.

The Irken raised an eyebrow, then pulled a small knife out of his boot and struck out for Dib's neck. Dib quickly countered with his sword, and, the second the blades clashed, the Irken's knife became a full-length broadsword.

"This is how we reason in the Empire," the Irken smirked. "I'm gonna take your life and this planet, in the name of the Tallest."

"Wonderful," Dib sneered. "So it begins. Zim!" he barked over at me, shoving the Irken away with his impeccably-handled sword. "Get Tenn! Go, now!"

And thus the first battle began. I nodded and turned to leave, scanning the field for the best route to my destination. Just before I did, Ira caught my arm and instructed, "Find me a sword of some sort. Red's better with a gun."

"Got it," I said, rushing off to the left toward the dojo.

One thing I've always been proud of is how fast I'm able to run. (Granted, that ability developed, in part, due to my having to run _away_ from a lot of things over the years...) Even with obstacles in my way, I can jump or dodge them without losing speed. I may not be as fast as some track runners, but it takes a long time for me to tire from running at top speed. As I was running, a couple of Irkens, in human holograms of course, attempted to stop me, but I fought them off, darting behind one and kicking him into the other in mid-air, causing his PAK to go off, killing them both. I landed and continued running as though it had not happened. I didn't want to think about ruining my chance at a soul by having the _need_ to kill some of the Irken soldiers. They wouldn't stop until their PAKs were destroyed.

Blind followers. Just what the Empire had always had.

Just what Tak wanted.

_Bitch,_ I thought as I ran, _you__better__show__your__face__today._

As Dib had said, Tenn was in the dojo, looking startled at the sudden attack. "Don't just stand there!" I shouted as I rushed toward the back wall to look through the available weapons. "Tak's army is out there, and we need you!"

"I'm gone!" she said, darting out of the building, her weapon of choice—of course, that revolver-type laser-powered weapon—in hand. Tenn's hologram, as did most others, added a little armor, so even if the hologram was damaged, her body would not necessarily be. Knowing that actually made me feel more powerful, since it was more of a challenge as a human, wearing nothing but the clothes I'd decided to put on that morning. Armorless, it was going to be fun.

Going into battle had always been fun.

...Hadn't it..?

There in the dojo, I was faced with the challenge of arming myself. I wasn't a big fan of guns, so I wasn't about to use that Vortian pistol again, as Tenn was. I needed something... something I knew I could use, and something I wouldn't have to stand there and deliberate over for very long.

My decision was made for me when a familiar voice came from behind me:

"I believe these are what you might be looking for."

I tensed and turned—indeed, there was the Mandylion, having come just as silently and mysteriously as ever, the hood of her cloak shielding the features of her face. In her thin, gloved hands, she held a set of what looked like two daggers. The blades were longer than the ones Gaz possessed, and the angular hilts, carved of an increasingly easy to determine material, were unsettlingly Irken. No matter, though—they were stunning to look at. The blades had a slight red sheen in the dim light that filtered through the open wall, and they looked easy to use.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded.

The Mandylion held the weapons out to me, as if there was no room for debate. "I am an agent of change, Zim," she told me again, "but I cannot guarantee any outcomes..."

"And that answers my question _how?__"_ I scoffed. "Look, I appreciate your help and all, though you do kind of freak me out, but I really don't have much time to talk. I've gotta get out there and fight."

"What for?"

"Earth," I said simply, my eyes narrowing as my entire being settled on my goal. "I've got the chance to be front line against the greatest threat to this planet, and I'm going to fight for Earth's safety with all I've got."

"Why?"

"As I keep saying!" I shouted. "I love this planet, I want to live here, and someone very, very important to me needs to stay safe. Now are those things going to help me or not?"

As I probably should have anticipated by now, the Mandylion laughed a little before answering. "They are yours if you wish them to be," she said. "They are among the finest Tavic weapons ever created." I'd thought so. I was a little wary about using weapons made of that Irken mineral, Tavis... but at the same time, using their own precious metal _against_ the Irkens was an idea I could easily entertain. "These _sairedon_ suit you, Zim," the Mandylion went on, as I finally gathered my pride, stepped forward, and took the weapons from her, testing their weight in my hands. "They have the ability to change size, if you so desire, and the ability all shards of Tavis possess... added protection.

They were pretty fantastic weapons... I had to hand her that. The hilts matched my grip pretty well, an I twirled them once, causing the blades to become longer, thinner... more like twin swords. They were definitely handy, and more than effective in short-range combat. I grinned and twirled them back to their regular size, tucking them into the loops near the front pockets of my pants for easy reach. Just before I could thank the Mandylion, she had disappeared.

Silently, I cursed her for being so damned... odd, then quickly followed Ira's advice by grabbing a _katana_ and a powerful looking double set of automatic revolvers off of the wall. I found a weapons belt with gun holsters hanging close by, so I grabbed that and strapped it loosely around my waist, knowing I'd just give it to Red soon enough, and tucked the revolvers and a few extra rounds of bullets into it, then, making sure my new _sairedon_ were secure, I ran back out onto the battlefield, _katana_ in hand.

Already a larger brawl had begun, but Brakem's army had been deployed. Our army was considerably smaller than the Irken Army, but in several ways it was more effective, since a great handful of the Irken Army seemed to be fresh from Devastis, with little field practice. Dib and the Tallest were still in the general area of the main building (that being Dib's greatest concern, I knew), so reaching them was no problem. Red was doing all right, fighting off the Irkens manually, but since I knew he was a good shot, I approached him first, un-strapping the belt and handing it to him after he'd knocked one of the Irken soldiers unconscious.

"Two," he commented after donning the belt and drawing the revolvers, "nice. Not quite laser-powered, but these'll do."

"Red, why are you even fighting for us in this one?" I asked, going back-to-back with him, striking an approaching Irken with the back of my left hand.

"This isn't my army," he said darkly, firing once. Damn. I had not expected that from him. At all. Red, though, was one of those people who acted best in the heat of turmoil. The best decisions he made were on very short notice; the best realizations, too. If one thing could get him thinking more openly about the whole Irk vs. Earth situation... it was seeing Tak's army in action. "Tak's trained a new one, and it pisses me off. I kinda want this war to end as much as you humans do."

"Heh, really? We humans, huh?" I grinned.

"Yes, you humans! Now get that sword to Ira!"

I nudged Red in the back just before I left, remarking, "Thanks for calling me 'human.'"

That said, I began to scan the field for Ira, and as I began to walk away, Red finally got what I'd just pointed out to him, then called back at me, "If I have any bullets left by the time we're through here, you're going down, Zim!"

I just grinned again and continued rushing over to where Ira was involved in a small battle of his own. He was using a form of martial art I'd never seen before—not in Brakem's army, and certainly never in the Irken one. Ira's height actually became an advantage for him, since his style was mostly kicks and low punches, though there was a lot of variation in there as well. His thin frame added a heightened agility, and surprisingly his long hair didn't even prove to be a blind spot for him, he attacked with such precision.

"Here," I shouted, tossing the _katana_ in his direction.

Ira grabbed it by the hilt without missing a beat, unsheathed the blade and thrust it through the chest—and PAK—of the Irken directly behind him, then pulled it out to strike down another to his right. Drawing my own new weapons, I approached him and asked, "What the hell kind of style is that?"

_"__Taijutsu,__battoujutsu,__"_ he said, tossing his bangs out of his eyes and preparing for another confrontation. "Plus a few things I've picked up here and there."

"Jiu-ai-what?"

Ira flashed me his carefree smile. "I'm from Japan," he said just as conversationally as if we weren't in the middle of an intergalactic fight.

It still hadn't hit me completely that Tallest Purple... well, Ira... was really human. More human than I was. I tossed the thought from my mind, wished him luck, and rushed to the other side of the main building, wanting subconsciously to just find Gaz and fight wherever she was, to make sure nothing happened to her. I was confident in her ability to fight on her own, but still, I wanted to be the one to protect her.

The _sairedon_ in my left hand began to feel warmer against my palm, so I turned to my left to see an Irken soldier approaching. _Handy__trick,_ I thought as I twirled the blade out to its longer size and slit my attacker's neck. Of course, he didn't bleed, but he was stunned, so I took that opportunity to rush behind him and thrust the blade in my right hand, still a smaller size, into his PAK, causing it to short-circuit. As he fell, I twirled my left _sairedon_ back to its regular size and continued onward.

_Huh,_ I thought._I__could__get__used__to__these..._

Overhead, grey clouds were forming, and with the season as it was, I sensed that there was a great possibility that it would soon begin to snow, or we'd get freezing rain at least. Either way, if we could hold the Irkens off until that time came, we'd be fine, due to the Irken race's inability to withstand any form of water. The lake hadn't frozen over yet, either, so driving them, or, even better, their vehicles, into the lake would definitely cause us to gain the upper hand.

On my way to the other side of the main building, I ran into Nacea, of all people, blasting back several of the Irkens. She wasn't killing any of them specifically, but in some cases, their PAKs were shocked and they fell, but if that happened, she simply turned away. Nacea was the most peaceful person I've ever known, so death and the concept of killing did not strike a positive chord within her. Still, she was probably doing this for Dib's sake. I knew very little of the Meekrob girl, but one would have to be blind not to realize just how much she wanted to stay in his good graces, and keep him protected.

"Nacea?" I asked, twirling my blades out to their full size. The fact that they could do that was becoming more than amusing to me. "Need a hand?"

"As long as I see no blood, you may help me as much as you wish," she said. No sooner had she said that than the two of us were surrounded. Nacea cried out and ducked behind me. She only came up to where my scar ended, in the middle of my back, so it may as well have only been me standing there.

"You need to attack, you know," I said quietly to her.

"I will just... close my eyes, then." I then heard a blast behind me, and knew that she was not holding back.

I smirked and yelled out at the Irkens, "Bring it on!"

One of the Irkens fired at me with a laser-powered Vortian revolver, but I countered with both of my blades and rushed toward him, thrusting my left blade up through and into his PAK, then struck out with my right as I pulled my left out of his lifeless body, and brought down yet another. The way my _sairedon_ functioned was becoming easier for me to handle as I fought. Having the small swords was just like adding a little extra reach to a regular punch; I fought to the best of my ability, eventually striking down every Irken that had come my way.

Nacea, too, had done quite a job, though she looked sick when she saw the carnage. "I am going to find Dib," she told me, sadly looking at her surroundings.

"If you're uncomfortable, Nacea, just go back inside," I suggested, "where you can—"

She shook her head. "He needs my help." With that, she waved good-bye to me with a smile, and darted off toward where Dib had been fighting.

"See you," I called after her. I had my doubts, whether she really should have stuck to the battle, but Nacea was headstrong, even if she did appear mostly naive. She won a little respect from me, for being more or less a pacifist... obviously, I didn't completely _want_ to be a solider right now, not if I could help it. But fighting for my life and for the planet I'd come to admire, now that was somehow different.

That was the difference. I was fighting to protect. Not to destroy.

Even when my repairing PAK tried to argue, I managed to stay focused on my present targets. Drive them to the water—drive those damn Irkens back.

As I continued onward, I noticed that even GIR had come out for a little piece of the action. Installing the extra obedience a few years before had proven to be a good thing for his battle tactics, it seemed, since he wasn't running from a single fight. GIR was equipped with quite the variety of internal weaponry, and he was, to my surprise, utilizing most of what he was capable of. I smiled to myself, feeling proud of what the little, usually spastic, robot could really do.

I hadn't reached the other side of the building before someone rushed up behind me and put me in a choke hold. My _sairedon_ hadn't reacted, meaning my attacker was moving at a speed that a regular human could not even hope to detect. When I finally did feel the heat in my hands, though, I could tell that the pressure was just a little stronger, due to this Irken's physical contact with me. He was pressed up against my back, and, strangely enough, I could feel his alien heartbeat—and it almost matched mine.

I struck him in the gut with my elbow and tore myself away from him, turning completely so that I could see my attacker. I stumbled backward a bit when I saw that it was the taller of the two leaders of the current invasion. The one who looked like a younger, more violent _me._

"Who are you?" I demanded. He stood his ground, not even drawing a weapon, glaring at me indifferently. "Answer me!" I snapped.

"Surprised you don't recognize me, Zim," he said, drawing the knife from his boot with his left hand and beginning to circle me. He swept his right hand over the blade of the knife, and the weapon became almost intangible, lengthening greatly. He grabbed the light with his right hand, and it became a long chain. As he began to swing the chain, I noticed that the weapon was actually a _manriki,_ what with the lead weight on the end. The lead weight on his bore the Irken Military insignia, and was sharply spiked. "Seems you had no trouble in finding Tenn again. Still... what an outcome. Stupid human."

His voice finally registered in my mind. It was a voice I'd heard plenty of times during my stay on the _Massive,_ the voice of someone who fought for the mere pleasure of being a soldier. He'd wanted his weapon back, I remembered him telling me. He'd once had one made of Tavis. And that _manriki_ certainly had the same strange sheen as my strange, thin daggers.

"Good to see you too, Skutch," I muttered, preparing myself to strike whenever he seemed as though he was about to.

He smirked, and laughed a bit. "There we go."

Something was off. Skutch had never been easy to read, but still... something was off about him now. He'd been helping me out on the _Massive,_ sure, but... "Skutch, why are you with Tak's army?" I ventured to ask, standing my ground.

"With?" he mocked me. "Nah, Zim. I'm _leading_ this army."

"Leading?" I repeated. "You?"

"You doubting my abilities?" Skutch snarled.

"I'm doubting your loyalty."

"Well, don't," he snapped. "Tallest Tak did somethin' Red and Purple never did. Two things. I finally climbed, Zim. Got my promotion, got my weapon back. Easy enough."

But _still..._ something just felt _wrong_ about this...

"What are you doing here?" I demanded, following him with my eyes as he continued to circle me.

"Tak wants to build up the Elite again," he explained simply, still swinging the _manriki._ "Well, we can't very well have our old Elite back without our leader, so it was Tak's idea that we come here in order to find him and bring him back."

"What are you talking about? The old Elite Commander is dead, isn't he? Whoever he was." I realized, then, that I'd never learned the name of the former Elite leader, not even in the military history course I'd taken on Devastis.

"Oh, no, he's very much alive," Skutch said, sounding a little bored. "Your little human corporation just happens to be hiding him is all."

My eyes widened. Things started to click, based on things recently revealed. "It's Red, isn't it?" I asked. Red never had answered that question I'd asked before. If he'd been the last Elite Commander, and if I knew Red... it would make sense that he'd get rid of the Elite once he became the Tallest, so that no one would come into a position too similar to his own. The only outstanding anomaly was Ira. What the hell was he doing in the Empire? I shook that confusion away, and focused back on Skutch. _Time__and__place__for__everything,__Zim.__This__is__about__Red.__And__Tak._ "It must be! Even though Tak's the Tallest, she can't deny how powerful he is."

Skutch didn't answer my question, my supposition. All he said was, "Huh. You ready for this?" He then finally stopped circling me, and stepped down on the long end of the chain, wrapping part of it around his right wrist, and thrusting the lead weight out in my direction. I countered with both of my _sairedon,_ but one of the metal spikes cut across my left cheek. I felt the warm blood leak from the cut immediately, but didn't let it bother me. Skutch laughed and retrieved the _manriki,_ swinging it around his back before it lost momentum and thrusting out again. This time I just dodged, but he immediately recoiled the chain and swung it once, causing his weapon to now become an arm-length Vortian laser-powered gun, which he aimed in my direction. "Like it?" he asked when he saw how confused I was with his weapon. "It's one of a kind, and it's all mine."

"Good for you," I snorted.

"So, Zim," Skutch grinned, "before I kill you and bring your corpse to the Tallest, is there anything you feel you need to say?"

"One question," I said. Skutch surprisingly held back long enough to let me talk. "Why do the two of us look alike?"

Skutch's eyes widened and he took a jump back. The gun retracted and again became nothing more than just a small knife in his hand. "Uh—" he began, looking a little uncomfortable with the question I had just asked. Composing himself, he took a couple steps closer to me, and before he could get too close, I extended my right blade, and he stopped before his neck could come in contact with the tip of the _sairedon._

His eyes locked on mine for a moment, and I could feel myself freeze. The shock of our similarities had caused us both to momentarily forget that we were supposed to be fighting. It would have been one thing if Red and I looked slightly similar, as well as all of the other male Irkens who had taken on some form of human guise or another, but it was just narrowed down to me and Skutch. "Did you know about me?" I asked, my voice surprisingly quiet but my expression unchanging. "Did you use your knowledge of my human appearance when creating your hologram, Skutch?"

"This... isn't a hologram," he said shakily. I raised an eyebrow, wondering just what was going on in Tak's mind lately. "I'm Tak's... 'perfected experiment,' I've heard her say..."

Skutch was like I once was. Internally Irken, outwardly completely human. It would be harder to get to his PAK, but he also had human vulnerabilities. The Cabochon had come into play indeed. Tak was just picking and choosing those she used it on. So, then, why Skutch? The only answer that seemed to make sense was that she'd known about our secret meetings, and had Skutch trapped, possibly under her hypnosis, forcing him to give her all the dirt on me he could.

"Perfected experiment?" I repeated. "Skutch... it may be that you're being used."

"Used? I don't think so." His eyes narrowed all of a sudden and he drew away from me. "Why am I telling you this, anyway?" he barked. "Look, it's coincidence, that's all! Nothing more than that. I don't want to be compared to some traitorous _human!__"_ With that, he tucked his knife back into his boot and evanesced.

I remained frozen for a moment, trying to work things out in my mind. For a moment, I thought, well, perhaps the reason Skutch looks similar to me has to do with the fact that his body is actually human... but, then again, I reminded myself, so was Red's. Red and Purple looked wildly different—no, wait... no... Ira. Things were certainly getting interesting. Who else in Tak's army had been changed with the Cabochon? And why? Why would she go to such great lengths to send Skutch after me? After Red? And was _she_ aware of the false Tallest at all? Shaking my head, I dismissed those thoughts from my mind, telling myself that this was not the time for me to be concerned about such issues. In battle, defense was my primary concern. That in mind, I twirled my _sairedon_ back to their smaller size, and continued on my search for Gaz.

– – –


	2. Invasion 2: Protector

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Gaz's Records_

For reasons outnumbering the most obvious one, the battle waged upon us that particularly cold fall day seemed wrong. Fighting felt wrong. I'm not saying I'm a complete pacifist, or anything like that—things just seemed out of place. The most obvious thing that bothered me was that Tak did not show herself. That pissed me off enough to get me blindly killing off a good handful of her newly trained soldiers.

I wanted answers. I'd been wanting answers since the day during the Incident Zim had fought her for the last time at her base. Tak's SIR unit, MiMi, didn't show her face that day either, but I had the feeling that, even if Tak had done repairs on her, as she'd claimed she was going to, MiMi still felt some sort of defiance for Tak, and could possibly eventually cause civil war among the Irkens.

The worst part was, _I__'__d_ be expected to clean all that up. Everything was resting on me and Dib. I wondered how much Tak knew about the whole _Miyuki__'__s__heirs_ thing. Hopefully at least her army had no idea. Either way, I wished I didn't have to be so heavily involved. Politics scared me. Irken politics creeped me the hell out.

As I fought, I tried to keep my mind busy, so that I wouldn't get preoccupied with the notion that I was destroying members of a race which my own mother once led. Actually, it helped me get some of my anger out.

I'd kept way too much inside over the past few years, and finally I had the chance to really be violent and let the world know that I was upset. I was mad at my sad excuse for a family life, I was mad at Dib for having left me on my own so many times in the past when I really needed him, I was mad at Tak for just being a bitch, and I was mad at myself for still not understanding my own emotions.

I thought I'd told myself, the second I saw Zim in his human form again, that I'd tell him every single thing that came to my mind in regards to him. That still hadn't happened. And now, something was seeming to make him withdraw a little. He was still being incredibly kind to me, and I truly respected and trusted him, but something about him seemed a little more secretive. Not that I wasn't being selective about things I told him, but still.

So I'd kept things inside. Smart move? Not really. But it gave me time to figure myself out, that was for sure. True, that hadn't _happened_ yet, but I had a feeling that I'd get there. I just had to actually talk to my mom again first. Because I knew how much the _Miyuki_ subject bothered Zim. The _Miyuki_ subject seemed to bother just about everyone. Eventually, things were bound to come crashing down.

On that day, I did not directly fight either of the officers in charge of Tak's ambush. Their names, I learned quickly from the dying Irkens I constantly encountered, were Skutch and Skoodge, both Invaders who had long since conquered their respective planets in Operation Impending Doom II. At one point, I was fighting alongside Tenn, who expressed her disgust in how far the two had fallen.

"We were in the Elite together," she snarled as she struck down one of her own kind. "I thought at _least_ Skutch was better than this." Outraged at her former compatriots, Tenn rushed off after speaking those words, trying to hunt down Skoodge.

I found myself fighting impeccably. For a while I wondered how it was that I was doing so well without taking any hits myself, but then I remembered... I was wearing that ring. In preparation for the fight, I'd rushed into my room and slid it on... the beautiful ring made of Tavis was shielding me (and Zim did write that it had protective qualities), and, balanced with the Tavis in my weapons, I was able to go into battle with hardly any worries. Whether or not the ring could protect me from something like a gunshot I didn't know, but when I was attacked with short-range weapons, I only felt slightly pained if they grazed my skin, but they left no more of a scratch than a cat's claws would.

I couldn't help but wonder when Tak would come down and attack us herself, if she would, or when we'd have to go to her. As much as I thought that battle would be one the Tallest would rather fight, Dib and I were involved in the Empire, too, so technically it was our duty. Upon remembering that, I began cringing every time I let myself destroy one of the enemy soldiers.

Getting distracted was a bad idea. One Irken came towards me in hologram while I was having internal debates, brandishing a thin green sword, obviously of pure alien origin. I managed to keep him back for a while, but with one wrong turn, the Tavic ring slipped off of my finger and I began to panic.

The sword came down at me, and I couldn't think to counter; I was too worried that I'd lost my only armor (not to mention the one thing I treasured above all my possessions) to raise up my daggers in defense.

Before anything could happen, someone darted between me and my attacker, and the sword clashed against metal. When my eyes let me focus again, my heart leapt.

"Zim!" I cried in surprise. He stood in front of me, wielding a pair of weapons I hadn't seen before, holding them, crossed, over his head, pushing back the Irken's sword.

"Leave her..." he growled, creating a swift motion with his weapons, thus shoving the Irken back, _"__alone!__"_

I caught the glimpse of something gleaming in the grass; while Zim fought off the Irken I darted for the object, relieved to find that it was my ring. I slid it back on and firmly held my daggers again, rising to help in battle should I be needed.

As soon as Zim had done away with the Irken (by that I mean completely destroyed the thing's PAK), he slid his weapons into his belt loops and rushed back over to me. "You okay?" he asked, looking me over for lacerations.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine," I told him. Suddenly I noticed another Irken approaching us quickly, and I cried out, "Zim, behind you!"

Swiftly, Zim drew the weapon hanging at his left hip, twirling it out to a larger size, then turned and stabbed the attacking Irken through the chest and PAK without a word. He winced and withdrew the weapon, bringing it back to its regular size, then looked back at me. "I hate fighting and killing," he admitted, "but I'm going to protect you."

From all sides, we were becoming surrounded. As much as I wanted to thank him at that point, or tell him that he already _was_ protecting me and that I'd been wearing the ring he gave me since the day I turned thirteen, there was no time for talk. I drew my daggers and Zim brought out both of his weapons, standing back to back with me, scanning the field to see how far back the lines of Irkens stretched.

"Let's get this over with," I decided on saying, already fed up with the strange yet terrible attack.

"No complaints there," Zim sighed. "Stay close to me, okay? I'm not going to let a single one of these freaks touch you."

_That__'__s__so__sweet..._ I thought, and smiled quietly, before switching gears and throwing myself at the oncoming battalion.

Though the Irkens were fast, I managed to make myself faster. The Tavic ring I was wearing protected me the whole time throughout what to some may have looked like an awful massacre, but really was just something necessary. Often during the fight I looked over at Zim, who showed absolutely no mercy in bringing down anyone who looked like he was coming within twenty feet of me.

It struck me as odd that Zim hadn't exactly checked to see that I'd received that gorgeous ring he'd given me, even though he and the Tallest had been with us for quite some time. Time just seemed to pass too quickly sometimes. Though I'd wanted on and off to tell him about the rim, and thank him for it, I was always interrupted, usually by my brother... or myself. Honestly, I was blocking myself a lot more, lately, than I ever thought I would. I got the sense that I had to be careful, but for what reason, I could hardly fathom a guess.

Zim and I held off the Irkens more than efficiently. Before our blades could find their way to each of our attackers' PAKs, a great number of them retreated, and the two of us heaved sighs at the same time. Zim flicked the still-wet, green Irken blood off of his weapons and twirled them back down to their smaller size, tucking them back into their loops, as I did basically the same with my daggers.

He straightened and smiled, walking up to me and checking again to see that I hadn't incurred any major wounds. "You're really good at defending yourself," he complimented.

"W-well, actually..." I said, drawing up my left hand. Zim's eyes widened, and he lightly took my left hand up in his, brushing his right hand across my ring.

"You..." he began, his eyes moving from the ring to meet my gaze, "you found it..?" I nodded. "When?"

"Um..." I started. Now wasn't the time to talk about it. It really, really wasn't.

And Zim understood. We'd talk later. But for now, he allowed himself a slight indulgence. Looking a little embarrassed, he let his eyes flutter down to study the ring on my finger again. "I'm glad," he said, smiling again. His face flushing, he asked, "So you probably read that letter, too, right?"

I laughed and replied, "Yeah, but it's really not embarrassing, Zim. I was happy to read your writing after so long. When I opened that box, you hadn't come yet, so I didn't know if you were human again or not, and... well, um, I mean... this ring really is useful. And pretty, too," I added quickly.

Zim let himself laugh as well and let go of my hand. "Then you like it?" I nodded, and he grinned. "That's good," he said happily. "I—"

But before he could answer, another wall of Irkens began advancing. Zim sighed and drew his weapons. "I'm still going to protect you myself, though," he told me.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Wheeeeee oh my gosh, seriously you guys I love _Part__Three._ Skutch is back! (I love Skutch.) We'll be learning, very soon, more about many people… Ira, Red and Tak especially. :D More on Miyuki is coming, as well, and of course our own wonderful Zim~ I like writing him in his element, out in the heat of battle… (and, of course, protecting Gaz…)

Man, this part really starts right off. XD (Music note: I always listen on repeat to Within Temptation's 'See Who I Am' whenever I revisit this part. Somehow it just always fits. I basically have a playlist for like… every chapter. ^^) It starts right off and it doesn't stop, so I'm really, really looking forward to bringing you these chapters over the next several weeks!

Again, apologies for the late start, I wrote a frantic alert when I did get home yesterday, but next week, things should be running a little more smoothly, so I will (for real this time!) reply to comments and will update again next **Friday,****October****21****st****!**

I'm still so crazy excited. XD See you then~~!

~Jizena~

– – –


	3. Invasion 3: Loss

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader __Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Dib's Records_

That first attack was all I needed to reaffirm my position on the Irkens. Miyuki could jostle me all she wanted, but I _hated __them._ Sure, having the powers was kind of a great bonus to what I could already do, and the _kairedon_ I'd been given proved to be more than useful in my attacks, but every one of the Irkens I killed that day was completely black-hearted, if they even had hearts. It didn't help that they were following Tak's orders. To lead an entire race of devils like that would be an absolute nightmare. Tenn aside, I hated Irkens.

I seemed to be the prime target that day, as I should have expected from the start, but Tak's army was sadly untrained and just as stupid as the members of the Resisty. The good news was, it was a great way for me to work out a little bit of stress, and try out the techniques I'd been learning from my various teachers. I felt pretty angry that the Irkens could evade my senses so easily and sneak up on us without knowing, since I hadn't had time to give a quick warning to the rest of the members, who seemed all to be keeping to their dorms, army members aside. Brakem seemed to have done an all right job at getting everyone spread out to our advantage, but our numbers did seem, that day, pretty small. Everyone had their strengths, of course, but out of everyone in our army, as I should have expected, the strongest ones were Tenn and Zim. Both excelled in physical martial arts, and had their own unique skills with weaponry.

For the most part, I stayed near the main building, and near Lex, though she and her father were doing an impeccable job themselves. Both of them preferred crossbows over any other weapon, though Lex did have a set of knives, a pistol and a braided, half-metal whip curled up and tied loosely to her belt, which she'd put on over her skirt for just such uses. She was a very graceful person whenever she was playing music, or cooking, or even just walking casually, but when it came to fighting, she let all of that go, not caring what anyone thought of her. I could have lost myself just out of fascination of watching her, but though she was a great fighter, I did my best to protect her anyway.

The more I struck out with my _kairedon,_ the more connected I felt to it. Over and over it found its way through the core and PAK of every Irken soldier that came at me, and withdrew just as quickly when my enemies' holograms were rendered useless and the lifeless things fell to the ground. That's all this army was: unfeeling, soulless... _things._

Dammit, the word _soulless_ had come to mind. I knew Zim had something like a soul, a broken, incomplete one—I could just kind of sense that about him. I saw him that day fighting beside my sister, taking a couple pretty bad hits himself just protecting her. The air around him didn't feel like that around any other Irken, not even Tenn, who had sworn loyalty to Earth. The only other ones with strange auras were the Tallest, Purple especially, but I threw that out of my mind as one of Tak's soldiers ran for Lex from behind. She didn't notice, so I rushed forward and cut the Irken down.

"Thanks," Lex smiled, looking back at me before firing her crossbow at another soldier.

Before I could say anything in reply, I heard a scream. My eyes widened and I drew in a gasp when I realized it was Nacea. _Shit,_ I thought, feeling that something wasn't quite right. "I'll be right back, okay?" I said to Lex, brushing a hand across her shoulder gently before taking off.

"Be careful!" she called over to me. I waved slightly to let her know that I'd heard her warning, then kept on running in the direction of the scream. Above me, clouds were gathering, and the air was getting colder. There was a definite chance of snow.

The lake on the complex grounds lies about one hundred yards away from the main building, but, utilizing for the first time in battle the surge step that Miyuki had taught me, I made it there in no time. The willow tree on the lake's edge was blowing unsteadily in the slight breeze, and Nacea was nearby, surrounded by Irkens out of hologram.

She'd been wounded, badly. There were cuts on her cheeks and arms, and an awful scrape on her left leg. Her blood was silver.

"Get away from her!" I shouted. Damning myself for doing so, I borrowed a great deal of energy from the air out of anger, creating a bright red orb in my right hand after switching my sword into my left. Asking the energy to harm everyone in front of me but Nacea, I shot it towards the Irkens, knocking them all unconscious.

Nacea stumbled back, holding her left hand over her right arm to start healing herself, but just then the shorter of Tak's two leading soldiers appeared from nothingness behind her. I hated that about Irkens, even though technically it was a trick I could do myself. The soldier, much quicker than he looked like he should have been, based on his squat body type, was clad in black and green—a high-collared black military jacket, with green hemming and the version of the Irken insignia that Tak had modified to suit her own needs stitched in green on the right sleeve; the rest black as well, save a thick green belt around his waist that held in it an array of weapons. In his right hand already was a large scythe, which shone ominously in the light over the field; his left arm was then around Nacea, and the scythe's tip was poised at her thin, pale neck.

"Let her go!" I shouted, creating another orb quickly. "Who are you?"

The soldier smirked and cut into Nacea's neck, causing her to scream again. "Invader Skoodge," he replied in a cutting nasal voice. "And I'm not gonna let her go."

"Yes, you are," I spat, taking in even more energy. I began to feel light-headed, since I'd never thought to use that much before.

Skoodge laughed and held up the scythe, spinning it round in the air before bringing it back down to hold in his teeth as he drew from his belt two other, smaller scythes, connected at the hilts by a black chain. With a downward sweeping motion, he cut into Nacea's wrists. Already her neck was bleeding terribly, and she didn't even bother screaming now. As tears streamed from her eyes, I noticed that those were silver as well. I could feel her pain. Maybe it was our connection, from my Meekrob abilities, or maybe it was just regular old human empathy... but I felt her pain, on what I know was a much, much lower scale than what she must have been experiencing. All I knew was that she did not deserve this. All-loving, peaceful Nacea did not deserve to be the one being dealt this torture. She was a diplomat. A scholar. A pacifist.

I didn't want to watch her die.

I knew I was doing myself in by even attempting what I was about to do, but I wasn't about to see a close friend get cut up so roughly and do nothing. Keeping the orb of energy glowing in my hand, I concentrated on where I was and where I had to be, moving through the air as quickly as I could to get behind Skoodge. That was the first time I'd ever teleported on Earth, and I'd done it while keeping the orb of energy intact. Even though I felt like I was about to pass out, I shot the energy at Skoodge's PAK, which was all too visible, even over his jacket.

The PAK emitted visible red sparks as Skoodge yelped in alarm and let Nacea go. She, in turn, fell to the ground, her silver blood covering the grass like a thin layer of snow. Skoodge snarled and turned back to face me, tucking away the smaller weapons in favor of the larger scythe. In a swift motion, he took a swipe at me while I was still concentrating on only the energy in my hand; his strike hit, leaving a deep gash in my left shoulder. I winced but kept hold of my sword, preparing to either slice or blast him.

"You can't kill me," he sneered, "I'm an Original." Not that I knew what one was at the time. Not caring, I held my sword at the ready and called up more energy in my right hand. "My power lies in my PAK instead of my mind, though," Skoodge went on haughtily. "Unless you destroy it separately from my body, _I __can__'__t __die!__"_

"Thanks for the tip, idiot," I spat, throwing the energy at him and lunging to hit him with my sword. As soon as it came down, he disappeared. "You horrible coward!" I hollered at the air. "Skoodge, was it? Get the fuck back here and fight me!" No such luck. Well... I'd get him. I swore to myself I'd find him and rip his PAK off with my bare hands.

Then, I saw Nacea. She couldn't even move, let alone try to heal herself. I couldn't determine whether or not she was breathing, and I was too tired to read her energy, so I knealt, praying she'd be all right. "Nacea!" I cried, setting my weapon aside and putting a hand on her shoulder. She didn't move. Panic struck me, and gently I picked her up a bit, letting her rest on my bent knees. "Nacea?" I tried again.

Stiffly, she lifted her head and opened her eyes to look at me. When her eyes met mine, she smiled. I knew, as soon as she did, that that would be the last time I would ever see Nacea smile. Even so, I wanted to help her. I wanted to stop it.

She was far too weak to heal herself, and I'd used up too much of my energy in fighting. Even though I'd fought to save her, she was still dying. "H-hold on, okay?" I said, trying to gather my energy again to concentrate on healing her. All it did was make me horribly dizzy.

Nacea took in a staggered, slow breath, and looked blankly up at me. "...Dib?" she asked. Her sweet, calming voice was faint. I shook my head, knowing that, with each passing second, I was losing her. I was losing someone who had changed my life; someone who loved me, someone who, in my own way, I loved as well. "Yes... it is you..."

"Hold on, Nacea, please," I whispered, holding her close. "Just give me a second, and I can heal you. Just another second longer, okay?"

"Dib, I..." she began, then choked on her words.

"Nacea!" I yelped, drawing her even closer to me. "Nacea, don't... you can't... don't leave me," I pleaded. "Just hold on! I can help you! Let me heal you!"

"Dib..." she said again, reaching up and touching a hand to my cheek. Her aura was fading fast; her body was getting colder.

_Let __me __heal __you!_ I pleaded silently, barely able to see Nacea through my tears. _Please, __let __me __just __heal __you __and __let __everything __go __back __to __normal._

Softly, Nacea kissed me on the cheek, then sank into my arms, her breath relaxing and fading altogether.

"N-Nacea..?" I asked, brushing a wisp of her silver hair out of her face. Her ice-blue eyes had closed. They weren't going to open again. Not now. Never again. "Nacea!" I shouted, shaking her a little, trying to rouse her. Of course, she did not wake.

_"__NACEA!__"_

I then let myself go. I let go of everything I was trying to keep inside, and bent over her, still holding her body close, not caring that there was still a fight going on around me. Nothing else mattered at the moment. Tears streamed from my eyes, and I let myself cry. She was gone.

Nacea was dead.

For a few moments, I could feel her there in my arms, but slowly the pressure began to disappear. I gasped and sat back. Slowly, Nacea's body was vanishing.

"No!" I cried. _"__No!_ Don't do this to me! You... y-you can't! Nacea, _no!__"_

The Meekrob, might I say, are beings of pure energy. Their souls and bodies are one and the same. When a Meekrob dies, the body disappears and the soul ascends.

_"__No!__"_ I screamed, pounding a fist on the ground when her body had completely evanesced into the air. The grey sky closed in, and it began to snow. "Nacea!" I yelled at the sky.

Just then, I felt a pressure in my right hand. I blinked back my tears and unfurled my fingers, looking down at my exposed palm. Laying in my hand was Nacea's ornate, silver, but-terfly-like Meekrob charm, which she'd always worn around her neck.

"Nacea..." I whispered, holding the charm delicately in both hands. I hugged it close to me and let myself cry again. "I could have saved you..." I choked out. "I could have healed you! _I __could __have __saved __you!_ ...I didn't even properly say goodbye..."

It all seemed too sudden and fake. Nacea _couldn__'__t_ be gone, I kept telling myself, over and over in my mind. She was just here... I just spoke to her. Still, even to this day, I feel that any moment I may turn around and she'll be standing behind me, with the same smile she'd always given me. Loss, in this capacity, had not yet crossed my mind. If I was being tested, as a leader, as a person, as a friend... I was probably failing. Because I couldn't cope with this. I'd been without, plenty of times. But I'd never lost.

Nor had I ever failed someone so horribly. I couldn't help but view her death as my own fault. My fault for focusing more on my attack than on getting her to safety. My fault for using so much damned energy that I'd drained and couldn't help her. What kind of leader was I, if I just let someone die like that? What kind of person? What kind of friend? For a moment, I felt hollow.

My memories became an even more precious asset at that moment. In my mind was the only existing picture of Nacea... elsewhere in the world, did she even exist? I felt awful, then. For spending less time with her after Lex and I had started going out, for not making it to save her in time, for using all of my energy to fight, ignoring all other outcomes.

I couldn't feel her energy anymore, not even within myself. Though I was soon to discover that my Meekrob powers had remained inside me, at the moment, I felt stripped of them altogether. Much of my power seemed to fade at that point, and when I looked over at my sword out of anger for putting so much energy into combat, it seemed, almost, to call out to me. To say that it alone, that nameless sword, was the only thing that could give me my just revenge. I couldn't kill with Meekrob powers. Irken abilities were out of the question. I wanted Invader Skoodge dead. And I wanted to kill him myself. In that instant, I wanted the satisfaction. My emotions had boiled down to only two... hatred and compassion, both at once. A part of me wanted to go after that no-good Invader and end his life right then and there, but I was held back by my own grief.

It wasn't even until I heard footsteps coming near me that I even realized I was cold. The footsteps stopped in front of me, and then my sister spoke my name. I looked up, then leapt to my feet, my heart aching. Without a word, I drew her in and held her close.

"Dib, what—" she began, her eyes widening when she touched the tender spot on my left shoulder. It hurt, but the pain of losing a friend was even worse. And not just a friend. Hadn't I thought it before? Nacea was like family. She'd taught me more than either of my parents ever had, stuck by me like a sibling. Sure, I had my entire family alive, but the only true member I cared about was right there.

Thank God it hadn't been her.

"Don't go anywhere," I whispered into my sister's ear. "You hear me, Gaz? I'm not losing my little sister... I'm not losing my little sister, too..."

"Dib, what happened?" she asked me. "Are you all right?"

Drying my eyes as best I could, I pulled back and showed her the charm that I'd been keeping a firm grip on. "Nacea..." I began, my voice wavering. "Nacea's... dead..."

"What?" Gaz yelped. "R-really..?"

"The Irkens killed her..." I continued. "She's _gone!_ Even her body is gone; it vanished! Gaz, Nacea is _dead!_ No one is safe anymore!"

Gaz looked genuinely pained, and put a hand on my good shoulder in consolation, her eyes meeting mine. All of a sudden, she gasped. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, "Your eyes, Dib... they're all brown again."

That made sense. All my energy had been drained, and I didn't care to revitalize my powers at that point, not after how stupidly I'd used them. I didn't say anything in response to that, but as I looked back down at Nacea's small charm, I started to panic all over again.

"Lex..." I realized. I didn't know where Skoodge had gone off to after killing Nacea. Maybe she was just the first step. Perhaps he'd gone after Lex next.

"What?" Gaz wondered.

I pocketed Nacea's charm, then firmly grasped my sister's shoulders, meeting her gaze again. "Lex!" I demanded. "Where is she?"

"Dib, the Irkens have re—"

"Where _is_ she?"

Gaz sighed. "Still with her father," she replied. "She's okay. Zim was fighting with Tenn and Brakem so I don't know where they are, but Lex is fine. Some of the Irkens are going back, but a bunch of them in what Red calls 'temp form' are still here, even with the snow."

I heaved a sigh of relief myself, feeling tears still lingering at the corners of my eyes. Nacea's death was all too sudden. Death is such a strange thing. It isn't until quite some time, hours, sometimes days, after a person is gone that you really begin to realize that you're never going to see them again. I was still in a state of denial about Nacea, but it would start to hurt soon, I just knew it. All I could think of at the moment though was, _Thank __God Lex is safe. Thank God __it __wasn__'__t __Gaz__._ If it had been, I would have broken down and given up then and there... or become so twisted with thoughts of revenge I might've stooped to Tak's level. Like hell that'd happen. I had to keep people close, from now on.

After a few lingering moments alone with my sister, I took up my sword and led her back to the main building, where I was to break the news to everyone. Break the news, and just keep fighting. Such was my life now. Fighting through loss, continuing to push back Earth's greatest threat. Keeping my head up and being a leader.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I had no control. Like I really was just being jostled about in the hands of fate. I was walking many, many lines. But I was not about to cross the one that would ally me with those heartless Irkens. I wasn't like Tak.

I wasn't going to let her take anything, or anyone, else away from me.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Poor Dib… guy's got enough going on, and now this… sorry, Nacea…

As for Skoodge... heh... we haven't seen the last of Skoodge. As for his power, too; we'll be learning about 'Originals' very, very soon. And I noticed, in the show, how he'd keep coming back, even after being supposedly killed. Bastard's like a cockroach. D:

Man, there's more I want to post, but I kind of want to do it separately, so I'd anticipate another chapter probably on Sunday. (Either that or a reeeeeeeally weighty update next Friday…) Again, things from here get going really fast, and I don't want to post too much and overload, haha… ^^;

Even with heavy chapters, though, I'm so glad to be back and posting… aaah thank you guys so much for your awesome reviews from last week! :D Much, much love all around~~ :3

Oddy tired as I write this, so I feel I haven't much to say, which is rather sad… ^^; But, yes! I will try to have another chapter up here at some point on **Sunday,** but I will absolutely be seeing you again next **Friday, ****October ****28****th****!** (It's almost Halloween, aaaaahhh!) So, so much in store, in these next several chapters…

:3

~Jizena

– – –


	4. Invasion 4: Retreat

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader __Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Zim's Records_

It was not entirely ideal that the times, lately, that I could be closest to Gaz had to involve some kind of battle—music room downtimes notwithstanding—but, hell, I'd take whatever worked. I was especially motivated this time around, too, thanks to her reveal that she'd found the ring I'd made, boxed up, and 'hidden' for her.

But we made a pretty damn good team, if I do say so myself. Now, I knew Gaz was good, but she must have been improving and perfecting her skills on her own time, since she was moving with much more assuredness and accuracy than she'd been during the Resisty fight. Then again, I, too, had a bit more drive this time around, and our reasons were the same: now, we were up against the Irkens. More was at stake, here, and every soldier we cut down brought us one step closer to Tak.

After, together, we dispensed of a trio from the new Irken army, Gaz perked up, expressing a sudden and inexplicable concern for her brother. "I just... I feel like he needs me," she said, nearly shaking.

"Sure thing," I told her. "Stay strong," I added, just before she could leave. Gaz flashed me a sweet, calming smile, and was then on her way.

Knowing that she had that ring really kept me going, that day. Knowing she'd received it, knowing she cared—it felt like more than I could ask for. It was kind of selfish, but I really wanted to get through that damn battle, just so I could talk to her about it. How she'd found it, and when, and, dear God, how awful _was_ that lame letter? Or, did she like it? Maybe she'd liked it. That'd be okay. Had she really held onto that ring because she'd been waiting for me? Ah—so much to look forward to. So I put my all into the fight. For her. For my right to be near her.

Fear and Love, that was all.

_All __right ,__Zim,_ I thought to myself, _let__'__s __get __that __soul __earned. __Sound __good?_

And then—what a time for me to feel that stab, first from my arm and then from my back, from the crossed scars that held my PAK in my body, the scars that felt, at times, so freshly carved that they could just burst open.

_Souls?_ the PAK's voice hissed into my head, echoing in my ears as if I were trapped in a cave and that voice was the only sound. _Why __are __you __on __about __souls?_

_Shut __up, __shut __up, __shut __up,_ I willed it. Hoping to drown it out, I pressed onward into battle, my hands clenched tightly around the hilts of my new weapons.

_Where __are __you __going, __soldier?_ it laughed. The laugh was horribly grating, like coarse sandpaper against a rough concrete wall. That voice did nothing but chill me, and I burned with the want to destroy it. It, like every other Irken (excluding Tenn and even Red) on the battlefield that day, was my enemy.

My greatest enemy.

My own lost past.

_Leave __me __alone,_ I snapped at it, in my mind. _Just __shut __up __and __stay __out __of __this._

_Stay __out? __Oh, __no, __dear __host, __you __see, __it__'__s __quite __impossible __for __me __to __leave. __Are __we __talking __to __ourselves? __Yes?_

"Shut up!" I screamed.

"I didn't say anything!" a uniformed Irken, not in hologram, protested. I hadn't even seen him standing there in my path.

"Sucks to be you, then!" I hollered, lashing out at him. All of my frustration came out through my hands, as I twirled out my _sairedon,_ crouched, and sliced both blades in a crossed pattern through that Irken's chest. Not entirely satisfied, I then stabbed that soldier right through the PAK, fixing my eyes on the sparks of red wires it spat out while the organic body screamed. And the worst thing happened. I couldn't stop.

The Irken was dead, or quite nearly, but I could—not—stop. I flicked its blood off of my blades, kicked it to the ground, and crushed its PAK in with the heel of my right foot.

_"__SEE __THAT?__"_ I hollered at the voice in my head. "You see that? That's exactly what I'm gonna do to you!"

It laughed again. _Suicide __is __rather __extreme, __don__'__t __you __think?_

"I'm—" I shouted, kicking the Irken's PAK in with each syllable— "going—to—beat—you!"

It shut up after that, for the time being, but possibly only so I could focus on the fact that someone behind me was clearing his throat. I turned, aghast, and saw General Brakem and his raven behind me. He didn't look happy, but, then again, he never did.

"Eh," I began rather meekly, retracting my foot and stepping back, "hello, sir."

"Problem?" he wondered.

"Oh, no," I said, "no problem, just, eh... working out some frustration."

The General snorted. "Good thing you're wearing that uniform, boy," he said gruffly, nodding at my grey army coat. "You were behaving an awful lot like one of them."

"Won't happen again, sir," I said quickly and firmly.

"Good."

"Any orders?" I wondered, glancing around.

Just as it began to snow.

_Finally,_ I thought_,_ _a __reprieve._ The Irkens would pull back for sure, since Tak knew well enough to stay away from water. With the onset of snow, I took a glance around what had become the battlefield to get a feel for what the Irkens' next move would be... how long they'd press on against us. I wouldn't hold it against Tak to send a suicide mission, honestly, since she had plenty of 'subjects' now to choose from. I'd figure she'd want Skutch alive, though, as well as the others she'd probably hand-picked to get Cabochon treatment. Those with human temp forms would probably hold up better in the snow, too, since obviously Red was doing fine, so the fight wasn't over just because the weather posed a threat.

Indeed, the Irken Army had much more in mind. I'd run past some Corporation members who'd fallen, though the human death toll was, from what I'd seen, lower than the Irken one. But those Irkens were going to cut their way right through to Dib, it seemed, and it didn't matter who fell until they reached their target. This was proven when, right in front of us, before Brakem could give me any orders, there appeared the shorter of the two Invaders in charge.

Who else but Skoodge, fat and smug even in a human temp. To Skutch's wild red-orange hair, Skoodge's was clipped and green, fitting with his almost blatantly Irken color palate. It was the scythe he carried that disturbed me. If Tak was trying to send some kind of message by deploying a literal reaper, well... she'd made her point.

"Withdraw your troops," General Brakem attempted to command the Invader, aiming a pistol at his chest.

"Huh, how about no?" leered Skoodge, raising his scythe.

"Sir, you might want to—" I tried.

"You fight your own battle, kid," Brakem snarled at me. I wanted to mention to him that, um, yes, this definitely _was __my __battle,_ but whatever. "You. Irken. What're you after?"

Skoodge snorted out a laugh. "Whatever the Tallest wants," he answered.

And with a swing of the scythe, Agent Disembodied Head had lived up to his name.

Now, I'd hardly had any opinions about the General, but I hadn't really prepared myself to watch _anyone_ get decapitated that day, regardless of whether I'd known them well or not. A single swipe of that curved blade had cleanly sliced the head right off of Brakem's shoulders, narrowly missing the raven that took flight the second the scythe had been raised. There was little I could think to do in that moment but stand there and stare on in disgust as the carrion bird then made off with the head of its freshly deceased owner, leaving a small trail of blood in the thin blanket of snow that was beginning to form at our feet.

All Skoodge had to say about it was, "Human blood's really red, huh?"

"I'm pretty sure Tak already knows that," I growled at him, stepping forward to oppose him. "If this was an experiment, you're not going back with anything new."

"Zim, Zim, _Zim,__"_ Skoodge laughed at me with complacency. "Right about now I bet you're wishing you stuck with the Empire, huh?"

"Never wanted to be more removed," I corrected him.

Skoodge was quite done talking at that point—which was odd for him—as he raised up his scythe again and came at me. Much more prepared than the late General had been, I countered with my _sairedon,_ using the set as a shield first before holding him back with one hand and taking a swipe at him with the other. As we fought, I made sure to get us several paces away from that dead, headless body, since being around corpses gave me an awful feeling. Skoodge quickly regained control of his long weapon and aimed lower. I read the line of action quite easily, though, and was able to duck out of the blade's path. Needing more of an upper hand, I kicked a patch of snow up into Skoodge's eyes, which got a yelp out of him as he turned away, giving me ample time to get in a physical attack—

—or would have. At that point, I was hit in the back by a hard object, which both cut me and momentarily shocked me out of a few breaths. Only one thing in the world could have achieved that, and when I turned, I saw, indeed, Invader Skutch, retrieving his _manriki_ and spinning the chain out to his side in preparation for another attack.

"Retreat already," I hollered. "It's snowing."

"We're getting to it," said Skutch. "You're just too good a target to pass up." With that, he stepped down on the _manriki _chain, sending the spiked ball back in my direction.

Only for it to be intercepted by a quick block from a thin sword. Skutch withdrew the chain, pissed at having been cut off from his attack, and it was at that moment that I recognized the newcomer as Ira. I was impressed with my mental capacity to not think of him as 'Purple' at all anymore. Of course, I had absolutely no idea who 'Ira' was, but I had a feeling I'd find out soon enough. Whoever he was, the man could _fight._ His purple eyes, cold and sharp as steel, fixed onto Skutch for a warning, then shifted to Skoodge. "Zim, on your right!" Ira warned me, and I had just enough time to move before Skoodge brought that scythe down on the spot where I'd been standing.

Before he could lift it again, two shots were fired into his shoulder, but Skoodge was unfazed. "Now I remember why I've always hated you," I heard Red say as he approached, pistol still aimed directly at the stout Invader. "You just don't stay down!"

Skoodge narrowed his eyes at the proper Tallest, but Skutch hollered out, "No fuckin' way; I've got this one!"

It was then that I fount myself caught directly in the middle of a brawl, between the two Tak had overthrown, and the two she had then placed in charge of her new army. Skutch and Red were engaged in physical combat in the blink of an eye, each of them utilizing moves that must have been derived from old Elite standard martial arts. Neither drew a weapon against the other. Skutch was faster with his hands, but Red had more stamina. Both threw punches, but neither showed any sign of surrender or fatigue.

While this was going on, Ira tried, again and again, to strike a mortal blow to Skoodge, but with no luck—his keen blade could do nothing. I knew that I shouldn't interfere, but I wanted to stay nearby on the off-chance that one or the other might need me, but I ended up just plain having to duck out of the way when Skoodge threw his opponent.

Turning away for a quick second from his own opponent, Red managed to catch Ira, though in a rather awkward but useful position—Ira landed with his back against Red's chest, with the Tallest's arms propped right under his partner's, giving him the opportunity to hold Ira's balance with his left arm and fire at Skoodge with the pistol in his left hand. Furious, Ira broke out of Red's grip, drew his sword, and rushed back at Skoodge on his own, burying his blade deep into the Invader's thick gut.

Which just got Skoodge laughing. Ira, quite put off at this point, withdrew his sword, and I saw his sharp purple eyes calculating his next attack, but Skoodge put a stop to it all by remarking, "I can take a hint. We're done here anyway."

"You go on back," Skutch snapped at him. "I'm not quite done."

"Oh, no, I'd say you are," a commanding voice cut through the air, halting everything.

As the bulk of the Irkens began retreating, as I saw, in fact, several ships rise up into the air, Dib began walking toward us, his face hardened with the sight of true hell. Behind him walked, in almost perfect _V-_formation, Gaz, Lex, Professor Haynsworth and Charlotte Baudelaire, each affected by the battle but for the most part unharmed. Dib's right hand was clenched around an object I couldn't identify, so tightly, in fact, that he was bleeding; his girlfriend looked disturbed by the sight, but understanding of whatever the situation itself was.

Skoodge backed off and retreated to his ship, which won him a scathing glare from Skutch. The young Invader's attention quickly diverted, however, and he set his clear blue eyes on Dib, remarking, "Bet you're glad to have one little win under your belt, eh?"

"Get out of here," Dib demanded. "Leave my Corporation grounds and my planet. Now."

"Aw, come on, just _one_ kill?" Skutch fake-pleaded, shifting his knife to a sword that mimicked a Chinese _dao._ His eyes scanned to those of us standing nearest him, but the one within closest range was Ira.

Before the false Tallest could make a move, Skutch was on him, yanking him back by the ponytail and holding the blade up to Ira's cheek... only to be stopped short by Red.

"Don't even try it," Red warned Skutch darkly, the barrel of his pistol directly on my near-double's temple.

Highly amused, Skutch looked up and grinned. "Well, lookie here," he taunted in a sneer. His grin spread into a wider, more satisfied one, and he took hold of Red's gun in order to aim it down and away as he gave into a bit of characteristically Irken laughter. "Aren't _we_ acting human?"

"You were better than this, Skutch," Red snorted disapprovingly. "Get the hell out of here."

"Oh, I'm out," Skutch laughed, letting go of the gun and backing up, "but not on your orders."

With that, Skutch returned his weapon to what I now knew was his favorite form, the _manriki, _and stepped back just as Skoodge piloted the ship in which the two lead Invaders had arrived toward us. A quick jump got him up on top of the ship, where he draped the chain of the _manriki_ over his arms and around his neck, and stood straight back. The ship itself began to ascend, and other ships either followed or began their course skyward in a flash.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Skutch announced, spreading his arms out wide to both sides from his pedestal, addressing the entire Corporation. "Consider this departure our gift to ya! Warmest regards from our Tallest Tak; you can expect us again, that's for sure. Sit tight and pretty, humans, we'll give you time to catch up a little before we come back to reclaim our Commander. Valiant effort, fuckers, I salute you!"

"You're retreating, you fucking Irkens!" Dib hollered up at him. "Effort my ass, once you get back here I'm gonna kill every one of you!"

"Not gonna happen, human!" Skutch laughed back as the ship continued its ascension.

"Then send Tak down herself!"

"Oh, she's coming." And it was then that I noticed the sheen in Skutch's eyes. Even elevated a good fifty feet in the air, I could see it. That vacant look...

The real Skutch wasn't entirely in control. Tak had set the Cabochon on the Empire's best soldiers, and to secure loyalty, she'd hypnotized some of them. Oh, that was low. Even for her. Well... at least I had something I could hold over the new Elite the next time we were locked in battle.

"Oh, and by the way," Skutch added, "have fun dodging this missile! See ya—or, whoever survives!"

The ship he was riding picked up speed, so he ducked down through the top hatch, just as something else was dropped out from the bottom. That ship, along with the others, then accelerated up into the sky, coursing back toward the _Massive,_ but it had indeed left behind a parting gift. An enormous detonator reading a countdown in red LED letters—from the Irken alphabet. My human eyes couldn't make sense of it.

"Damn it..." I heard Red mutter under his breath, meaning he'd realized he could no longer read Irken, either.

"Twenty seconds!" Tenn shouted out from nearby. I whipped my head toward her. "I recognize that model, it's Brain-manufactured! It functions like a PAK, it'll short-circuit under water, but we'd need a hell of a lot more than this snow!"

"Right," I said, getting up and rushing toward it.

"ZIM!" Gaz screamed. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Guys, stand back!" I ordered. "Tenn, count me down, all right?"

"Fifteen," Tenn called over as I picked it up and began running it toward the lake. The thing was enormous, but it was, as I'd been anticipating, light. Just like SIR units, it was complex, but practically lightweight, for ease of storage. "Fourteen... thirteen..."

Her voice sounded further and further away as I kept my footing in a sprint toward the lake. At what I assumed was ten seconds, I hurled it out over the water, then booked it back to where the others were still standing and hollered, "Cover, just in case!" I didn't see what anyone else had done, since I threw myself over Gaz at that point, pulling her down to the ground and keeping my arms wrapped tightly around her, my back to the lake.

The detonator did go off, but the worst that happened was a minor wave. Less than ten seconds underwater probably hadn't been enough to destroy it, but it had been enough to weaken the effects. No further damage done.

We'd made it through the first Irken attack.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

(So I totally meant to put this chapter up on Sunday so that it could be a separate post… but at the time it still didn't look right to me. I totally don't want to rush these chapters, ESPECIALLY in part 3, so my apologies for that! ^^; )

My, my, Zim's PAK is getting talkative, eh? ^^ Also, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I love Skutch. I freaking love Skutch. Can't wait till he comes back because he is just way, way too much fun to write. XD

Just wanted to get a couple thoughts out… more notes next chapter! :3

~Jizena

– – –


	5. Pasts 1: Ira

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader __Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Dib's Records_

Before I could say anything to anyone, Victor sent me to the infirmary, declaring that I should put my personal safety above all else. Ever since he'd informed me that he was my godfather, I noticed that he really was doing all he could to keep a watchful eye on me, which made me wonder just what my real father was up to, and even more than that I wanted to know what the Professor's connection to my family had been, in order for him to have agreed to look after me.

Stubborn as I was, though, I gave orders along the way. I issued a general call for all of the Board members who had survived to gather for a meeting as soon as I got my hand and shoulder taken care of, and put the entire complex on a lockdown. Tenn was instructed to gather a report together on Irken battle tactics, since we needed to analyze the enemy's weaknesses much better for next time. Since there was definitely, possibly soon, going to be a next time. The Tallest, I didn't expect much from, and it had been almost more than enough that they'd fought for us at all, so I didn't hurt my head trying to come up with tasks for them. I sent Charlotte off to find Agents Cthulhu and Bloodrose, informing her that I wanted Cthulhu to clean up after things in Brakem's absence. It was a blow, losing the head of the army, but there were others who could fill the position. I had one in mind already, I just had to make sure I was thinking clearly about that.

Something else on my mind was my recent use of Irken abilities. Which everyone on Corporation grounds knew about, aside from one person. Hell, obviously even Tak knew. So, as awkward as I knew it would be, Zim had to find out. He had to know about Miyuki. Once again, though, I had to be clear-headed in order for that conversation to ever work.

Because, damn, was my mind ever cloudy.

Nacea was dead.

Dead. Gone. Vanished. Just like that.

But with her loss, I was soon to discover something new.

Lying there alone in the infirmary, I took out Nacea's charm again and clutched it tightly until blood trickled down my palm. My shoulder stung horribly now that it was exposed to the air (again following advice I'd stripped down to my jeans upon first entering the infirmary), and looking down at it I saw how huge the gash really was. It looked like a cavern; the scythe had cut through a few layers of tissue, but the cut was so clean, I knew that a little extra effort would probably have severed my arm right off.

I couldn't even begin to think about how I could stop the bleeding. My mind was drawing a blank, I couldn't remember how to heal myself, let alone others. Nacea was gone. Not even her body remained; we couldn't give her a proper burial. Shit—I had to somehow get in contact with her planet, but I had no idea how. Would I be hated for letting her die?

I held onto her broach until it cut into my palm. For a weak moment, I felt as though, by focusing so much of my time on Lex, I'd betrayed Nacea somewhat. And I hadn't even the time to apologize. She couldn't hear me anymore, I couldn't see her anymore.

It wasn't long until Lex entered the infirmary, walking up to me. "Are you all right?" she asked me softly, touching a hand lightly to my arm.

Wincing, I sat up, the gash on my shoulder stinging as I did so. "Where are the doctors?" I wondered, not wanting to talk about Nacea. Not to my girlfriend, not yet.

Lex forced a smile. "One of them was killed," she told me, "the second is treating some of the others right now, but someone is on his way." I couldn't think of anything more to say at that point. Hanging my head, I slowly unfurled my fingers and stared down at Nacea's charm. It was glowing, just a little. With that, I could regain the powers Nacea had given me. In that way, she could continue to live. "Dib, your hand..." Lex noticed.

Unwillingly, I ignored the comment. "I could've saved her," I thought aloud.

"That's Nacea's, isn't it?" Lex wondered.

I nodded. "All that's left," I said.

"It isn't your fault..." Lex tried. "Dib, your sister told me what happened," she continued. "I'm sorry, that—"

"At least it wasn't you," I found myself saying, my eyes locking with hers.

"God love you for saying that," Lex sighed, leaning in and touching her forehead to mine.

_Keep__me__sane,_ I pleaded, deep in my mind. Without Lex as my anchor, I knew I probably would have lost control, or would be very close to doing so. I'd already utilized my Irken abilities in ways I'd previously been too afraid to, to the point that I'd drained. I couldn't afford to keep doing that. I had to stay grounded.

I had to stay human.

While at a loss for what else I could say to my girlfriend, I again heard the door open. This time, to my complete astonishment, it was Tallest Purple who entered, his partner not far behind him. "What are you doing here?" I asked, hoping I didn't sound harsh. It was a little hard not to.

Red sighed and just nudged Purple further into the room. Purple looked more nervous than I'd ever expect a leader of an empire to, and he cleared his throat a little, tying back his hair more neatly as he approached me. Lex stepped to the side after giving me a small kiss on the cheek, then walked over to Red and exchanged a few words with him. It seemed as if they'd spoken before, if not just moments prior to her entering the room in the first place. About what, I was about to find out.

"You need immediate attention," Purple said, trying hard to sound strong as he started picking through the antiseptics and other bottles of things I didn't know the names of. "You're the leader of this place, I don't see why that idiot didn't focus his attention on you first."

"By that you mean the doctor?" I guessed. Purple snorted, found what he was looking for, and, to my surprise, began deftly washing the blood away from the deep cut on my shoulder. "He's doing what he can, and—what're you doing?"

"Hold still," Purple advised me. "Will you be all right if your sister and the others come in as well?"

"I guess," I said, still shocked at what the Tallest was doing. He nodded over to Red and Lex, who left the room, to grab the others, I assumed. When we were alone, I asked again, "What're you doing?"

"What does it look like?" Purple returned, dabbing something onto a cotton swab. "This will sting."

"What? Hey—ah!" Okay, at least he warned me. But I still didn't understand what was going on. Purple remained as calm as he could, though he seemed nervous to just be in my presence, as always. Earlier, I'd assumed his wariness around me was just because I was to one day take his place as Tallest, along with Gaz, but now that I thought about it, that emotion was far too human to be something menial like that. Skillfully, he applied surface medicines and a bandage to my shoulder, then looked down at my hand.

"I know there was something between you," he said softly, "but you're going to have to let go."

Had I not been in such shock, I probably would have fought him. However, under the strange circumstances, I slowly loosened my grip on Nacea's charm, and Purple gently took it from me and set it to my side, then went about applying another bandage to my injured hand. It was pretty incredible, I had to admit, how well he was using the medicines he'd found, and how composed he was managing to be. This was the same person, I had to remind myself, who had been giving me sword training for weeks now. He had a knack for staying calm under pressure. So where was that nervousness coming from?

"I didn't know you could heal," I commented. "I guess it's something all Tallest can do?"

"Red doesn't know a thing about it," Purple responded gravely. I winced when he again applied ointment to a wound, and he smiled a little to himself and took hold of my wrist to continue his work.

"I could probably do this myself now," I offered.

"Just hold still," he advised. At that point, I noticed that Red and Lex had returned with only a few others, rather than the entire floor, as I'd thought. Just Gaz, Zim, and, somehow to my surprise, Victor Haynsworth, who looked almost as though he'd just seen a ghost. My attention turned back to Purple when he commented under his breath as he fastened the bandage in place, "You're as stubborn as your father."

I drew my hand away as Purple stood back, and I found myself staring blankly into his powerful eyes. "What did you just say?" I demanded. I thought I would be angry. Instead, I realized, I was scared. Why wasn't I angry at Purple?

Suddenly, when I realized that I no longer felt any pain in either my shoulder or hand, I recognized the technique he'd used. Not just the technique, but the care he'd put into healing me. Though it seemed impossible, he reminded me of someone... the name, I couldn't place, but I racked my brain a little trying to figure out who it was Purple reminded me of. It was going way, way back. Memories I hadn't touched in over a decade. But it was there. Something was there.

"Dib, there's something you need to know about me," Purple said, leading into his thought quietly. He looked over at Gaz and the others and mentioned that they should take a seat. The layout of the small infirmary room was tight, but efficient. To the left of the door, when entering, there was a wall of four chairs, and another wall of four running at a ninety-degree angle to that. Then came the wall with the cot on which I was sitting, and closing off the rest was a fully-stocked supply chest. Which Purple had been navigating with almost too much ease. When he stepped over to meet the others halfway, Victor stopped him.

The Professor warily set his hands on Purple's shoulders, then leaned down to look in his eyes. Scarcely, I heard him whisper, "It's really you, isn't it?" Purple cast a look back at me, then over at Gaz, then nodded to my godfather, who showed a weak but meaningful smile before joining his daughter and the rest.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"This is going to shock me, isn't it?" Zim guessed, directing his question at Purple.

Purple smiled over at Zim in his carefree way, then replied, "You already know what I am, Zim. Now you're going to find out who I am."

"Purple, what's going on?" Gaz asked the Tallest, taking the words right out of my mouth. She looked just as scared as I felt, and I wondered if Purple reminded her of someone, too. Was it someone we both knew? Perhaps it was just his recent acts of kindness..?

Warily, Purple cast a glance over at his partner, who was leaning against the wall while the others sat. Red looked a little hesitant, then nodded. "You've got my permission," he said, his words coming out strained. "You won't get punished for talking. This time."

"Right," Purple sighed, turning to face all of us. If not for his eyes, I swear, he looked more and more human to me by the second. The way he stood, the practiced way he walked, some of the words he chose to use. All of this was soon to become beyond clear. "I," he began, "haven't always been a Tallest. On top of that, it was only recently that I even became Irken."

Zim must have known that already, because he looked away angrily when Purple said that. Gaz and I, on the other hand, had the same basic reaction, which was complete shock. Lex whispered something to her father, who nodded, so I assumed she had an inkling, too. That, I deduced, was probably what Lex and Red had been talking about. It was obvious that Victor had known, due to his earlier comment and even the way he'd acted around Purple in the past, but just now there was a heaviness in the air. Everyone was speechless. I didn't know what to think or do.

"I learned about the Irkens only a little while ago," Purple continued, his gliding voice shaking only slightly. He was trying hard to stay composed. "Before ever meeting Red, I was... I _am..._ human."

Gaz let out a slight cry, cupping a hand over her mouth after doing so, and again I froze. I had no idea why I wasn't angry. Was it because now I knew the inevitable fight for power between my sister and me and the Tallest would be easier? I doubted that. Somehow, I'd always felt that Purple wasn't Irken. He acted human around all of us, seeming perhaps more comfortable with it than even Zim.

"Why, only now, are you telling us this?" I had to know, trying to sound firm. _I__'__m__still__a__leader,_ I reminded myself. _Not__a__child.__Not__anymore._

"Right now, I'm being punished," Purple explained, his sad eyes somehow gleaming as he touched a hand close to his heart when addressing himself. "I'm being punished for what I did several years ago, when I learned about the existence of the Irken race."

"What happened to you?" Victor wondered. After speaking, he backed off, as though he'd said something wrong.

"Professor, did you really know him?" Gaz asked warily.

Purple nodded to the Professor, letting him know that it was all right to speak. Victor tugged at his collar, loosening it a little. He then looked down, folding his hands together as he bent over his knees. "We met at university," the Professor told us all. Zim perked up, looking hurt. Gaz and I, on the other hand, listened more intently. "Tallest Purple" had known our father, this I knew, and I wanted to know why. My godfather could tell me. He lifted his head to speak to the supposed Tallest again. "I had my doubts when you insisted I call you by a different name," he said, a mix of sadness and relief in his voice. "All those years ago, after receiving that call, I really feared the worst. When I hadn't heard from you, I thought you'd disappeared for good. It really is you..? Ira?"

That name. That name, I'd heard that name before. I fell back into my earliest memories, trying to remember where I'd heard that name, who had spoken it, and why it was important. Without a last name, I wouldn't be able to tell.

'Tallest Purple'—rather, Ira—nodded, then looked back at me and Gaz. She'd taken a seat close to where I was, probably knowing that something like this would happen. "I was born in Kobe, Japan, on February twenty-ninth, 1968," Ira said smoothly. "I came to America for college, spending some time in England as well, which is where I met Victor." Now I knew it was true. 'Purple' had never used the Professor's first name. "I met your parents, first, however, Dib... Gaz." He smiled. "Your parents and Victor were my closest friends. I was there, you know... when you two were born."

"Impossible!" Zim cried, then held himself back. I almost felt sorry that I'd decided it was time to tell him the truth about myself, and Gaz, and, therefore, our mother. He'd crash. Even if he was my 'enemy,' I could see that his mind was practically shattering. Painfully, he stood, addressing Ira. "I'm sorry," he apologized sincerely, "but I don't think I'm ready to hear this yet." I noticed his eyes flash slightly red, and he shook his head, trying to get something out. "I'll consult you later. I apologize."

Ira nodded, and Zim cast a look over his shoulder at Gaz, then left the room. I had a feeling he was still standing outside, but I couldn't really blame him for not wanting to know the truth about his once-Tallest just yet.

"Who are you?" I wondered after a pause, directing my question to Ira.

He smiled kindly in return, then said, "I'd like it if you could try to remember."

With that prompt, I let myself really sink back into my own mind. I took another look into the false Tallest's sharp purple eyes, and then, in my memories, I saw them again. The shape was the same, anyway—the irises were different. Warmer, softer, much, much kinder and undeniably human. The sharp, glaring purple color they sported now had once been a more relaxing shade of a similar hue, a more pleasing variant of that defining color. I'd been very young, the last time I'd seen those eyes. Gaz and I, when I was only three, had visited this man often, and for a good reason. More and more, I searched my memories, trying to find out just who he was.

"No way..." I found myself saying, letting my mind slip back to some of my earliest memories of childhood.

_"__So __how __old __are __you __today, __Gaz?__" __he __asked __my __sister. __He __leaned __over __to __speak __to __her, __his __hands __on __his __knees, __his __white __lab __coat __open __over __the __simpler __clothes __he __wore __underneath._

_ Gaz hid behind me and shyly dodged the question. "No," she said firmly._

_ "It's easy, Gaz," I pushed, trying to pull her back into the conversation._

_ "No!" she protested, shaking her head._

_ Our mother laughed and knealt down to our level, then picked Gaz up and turned to face the man who had spoken to her. "You won't answer, Gaz?" she asked with a lilt in her voice._

_ "That's all right, Miyuki; I know Gaz isn't really scared of me, right?" The man smiled and knealt down to talk to me, his eyes gleaming. A long black braid spilled down over one shoulder, momentarily distracting my attention. "You look after your little sister well, don't you, Dib?" he asked me._

_ I grinned and replied, "I guess so."_

_ Again, his eyes shone..._

_ Those __eyes..._ I thought to myself. I knew it. I did know who Ira was. Though, back then, I hadn't known him by his first name. He was a man I'd always respected, and someone Gaz loved very dearly. I heard my sister draw in a gasp as I finally matched 'Purple' to the person from my memories. He'd changed a little, but that seemed inevitable. Back then, I never thought I'd see him again, but now I knew why I hadn't been angry, and why he'd been nervous around me and my sister. He really had been a friend of the family.

I drew myself back out of my memories and looked over at Ira, a smile suddenly crossing my face. "Your hair was longer when I was younger," I said quietly, piecing together the last of those long-repressed memories, "Doctor Murasaki."

Tears came to Ira's eyes, and he smiled broadly. "I'm so glad you remember me, Dib," he said, almost proudly. His voice was different now than it had been years ago, but that was probably due to his becoming Irken somehow. He wasn't really human now, so some things would be different. For now, though, I was just glad to remember him, and more than happy to be in the presence of a friend from the past again.

"I thought I recognized you!" Gaz cried, leaping to her feet and going to Ira. "You _are_ Dr. Murasaki! I remember you."

Ira laughed a little and ran a hand through my sister's hair. "You've really grown up well, Gaz," he told her.

"This is so weird," my sister commented. "I can't believe it took me so long to remember you."

"Memories change," said Ira. "People come and go with time. But I'm glad," he added, drawing my sister in for a tight hug, "that I didn't leave you completely."

Okay, Gaz hated people touching her. She had ever since Mom left. So it stood to reason why she froze when Ira attacked her with that gesture. But it surprised me a little when she, after a good long hesitation, returned it.

It made me wonder how she'd react when she saw our mother again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Red sigh slightly, and then he flipped the main light switch on, making the room look a little less dreary for such an occasion. I'd never expected a reunion like this to happen. Now I knew. And I wasn't angry at all. I almost forgot my sadness, pertaining to Nacea's passing, what with how glad I was to see Dr. Murasaki again.

I stood, wincing a little, but found my balance; I wasn't about to sit through the entire reunion. Though I didn't know yet how Ira had come to be an Irken Tallest, I didn't trouble myself with it just yet.

Lex stood as well and walked over to me, examining the bandage on my shoulder, then kissing me again on the cheek. "My father sort of always expected," she said. "Ira's been drinking that white lily and jasmine tea since he arrived. He could lie all he wanted, but that much gave it away to me."

"You remember him, too?" I wondered.

"A little, from the visits Daddy and I would make to America."

I grinned. "Someday, Lex, I've gotta pick your mind," I said, stroking her hair. "It's like I've gotta hear stories from you to remember anything on my own."

"Well, based on the way your father's apparently been, I can't blame you for not remembering," my girlfriend told me honestly. "Though Tallest Red could have had some influence. I'm terribly angry with him for withholding information about Ira for so long."

"Yeah," I sighed. "I'm gonna be having a talk with him. Hell, I'm gonna be having a talk with everyone..."

Lex took hold of my arm, which helped reassure me and keep me calm. "You did very well, Dib," she complimented me. "You're a leader. It makes me proud to know I can help you."

I was glad she'd said that, because earlier I'd just been feeling like a stubborn failure.

There was a lot of catching up I had to do, and a lot to prepare for. It was still hard enough for me to believe that such a good friend of the family had been close to us this whole time, without even thinking about how some of the others might react. I made a note to ask Ira about his situation later; I assumed he may have been connected to Dad's first Organization in some way.

I'd suffered a loss, that day, and been reunited with someone from my past. But something was hanging over my head. Something with more gravity than anything else I'd dealt with recently.

Zim had walked out on hearing Ira explain who he was.

I'd seen his eyes flash red.

I trusted him, to a point, but the real test was coming. It'd happen soon. The time when I'd sit down with him and explain, without letting him run, what Gaz and I were. When he'd find out that he had not been responsible for Tallest Miyuki's death. That she wasn't dead at all.

Huh.

This really wasn't going to be fun.

– – –

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**Author's Note:**

Ah~ The battle's over (for now), and we're onto some serious character exploration. :D Seems like it's not long now till Zim learns about Miyuki… man, his mind's a fragile place right now. Maybe Gaz can help…? :3

And, gah, really, I'm so, so happy to start bringing Ira's bit of the story in. _(Murasaki_ is Japanese for the color 'purple.' Haha. There's actually a long, long history behind Ira's name, and we'll get into some of it; I've been debating whether or not I want to bring in his full past, though—which I hadn't in the original, I wrote it as a separate document because I'm crazy and like going into too many details about everything—but I'll feel it out and see just how much to/not to incorporate.) Ira and Red figure pretty prominently into the story; I love delving into their dynamic…

Everything starts weaving together very soon~

It was so nice to read the reactions to Nacea from last week… ^^;;; She's physically gone, but still plays a pretty big part in the story… It's kind of sad, but from the moment I created her character, I knew she was one of the ones who was going to die… D: (I'm an awful person.) But, yeah, the Irkens mean business now… and Tak's not far behind her army… And speaking of people we've not seen in a while, wherever _is_ that Professor Membrane…? ^^

It's almost Halloween~! Asl;dkfjagh it's my favorite holiday by far, and I hope you all enjoy any and all festivities~! :D

I will see you with another couple of chapters next **Friday,****November****4****th****!** Whee, November is my down month, so much more time to prep chapters~~ :3

Much love to all of you who read the _Saga!_ I've been crazy busy lately, but it's always such a treat to read comments and know that this story is being enjoyed~ ^^

~Jizena~

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	6. Trying 1: Thousand Places

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**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Gaz's Records_

I couldn't have been any more confused. Or, well, I thought that, and then instantly wished I hadn't, since it would probably very easily be proven wrong.

One thing was just really bothering me:

Where the fuck was my dad?

All this information was being held away from me and my brother, and the one person who could put it all into perspective was off being some jerky media icon and was just too Goddamn busy to come explain _who the hell he was_ to his kids. I called bullshit. For the first time in our lives, the very first time in our entire lives, Dib and I needed our father.

Oh, oh, we had a couple _friends of his, _sure, yeah, great. We'd never even known Dad _had_ friends. Had a social life. Hell, sometimes (before any of this insanity started) I used to sit alone at night wondering if we ever even had a mother at all. Neglect wasn't even the word for it anymore. What Dad had done, by not telling us a Goddamn thing, was just plain... unforgivable. Professor Membrane and Tallest Miyuki—which one was less human?

Ugh.

Shoot me now.

It was great to see Dr. Murasaki again. Once I remembered who he was. And that had taken a hell of a lot of mental processing, let me tell you. It was from catacombs in my brain that had just been sitting there collecting dust and cobwebs for years and years. It's awfully hard to try to remember something from when you're two, but I guess that was just the Irken part of me, being able to access old information like that.

Oh... damn it, why'd I even have to think of it that way?

Life could just be fucking horrible sometimes.

Dib was weaving in and out of a state, between Nacea being gone and him trying to talk about our Dad and the history of the Organization with Professor Haynsworth and Dr. Murasaki. Those guys had been there for the founding of the Network, Organization, Secret Club, what the hell ever Dad had originally called it. And all the while, Tallest Red stood off to the side keeping an eye on his 'partner' like he'd just plain strangle him if he said anything out of place.

What was Red's deal, anyway? I'd never met anyone harder to read (and still haven't, to this day). Out on the battlefield, he'd saved Ira from Skutch, with the kind of intensity of somebody trying to protect a loved one. But then at the same time, he'd been making Ira _lie to us_ about who he really was, all because of, as we learned, some kind of punishment.

Dear Irken race: _what the hell?_ Signed, everyone you've ever fucked over.

Dr. Murasaki was a case of wrong place at the wrong time, or so I gathered. Midway through his continued explanation of who he was, he started shaking and made us change the subject, so that we were talking about the aftermath of the battle again. "There are much, much more important things to worry about right now than... than any of this," he said. "I'm glad to be on Earth again, and I'm beyond grateful," he added, glaring up at Red, "to be free to use my own name again, but there's far too much, now, that needs to be done."

So Dib, to distract himself away from mourning his Meekrob friend, called a meeting, because he's _fucking insane_ like that, and sent me off to find Zim, which, I realized as I began walking down the hall, I'd already started leaving to do anyway. I was really concerned for him. He wouldn't listen to Ira's explanation of who he was, even though he'd seemed eager to know. How the hell was he going to take the news about my mother?

After scanning the grand hall for a couple minutes, I finally found Zim sitting in the doorway of his bedroom, his back against the left part of the frame, and his knees tucked up so that his feet were pressed up against the right side. He had his right arm crossed over his knees, and with his left hand he grabbed at his hair; his eyes were narrowed and staring forward at nothing. He'd discarded his military jacket—it had been thrown into his room and lay carelessly on the floor over the two matching weapons he'd somehow managed to procure during the battle.

"Hey," I said. Startled, Zim jumped a little, shifting to look up at me before finally scrambling to his feet.

He held himself up with some apparent difficulty, one hand on either side of the doorframe, his eyes lacking focus. "Gaz!" he began. "When did..." He cut himself off with a slight wince. Zim snapped his eyes shut and curled his right hand into a fist before pressing it back up against the doorframe. He shrugged that shoulder a couple of times, indicating that something was definitely wrong with the wound on that arm.

"Why'd you leave?" I asked him.

"Just now?"

"Yeah."

Zim tried to look at me, then shook his head, to get a thought out. "I don't know," he said. "There's only so much my mind can take right now, that's all."

"Like what?" I wondered. "What d'you mean?"

"You wouldn't understand."

Oh—that hit hard. Zim had been many things lately, but cold was seldom one of them. To me, at least. So why, all of a sudden, were his words like ice? "You've said that to me before," I reminded him, hearkening back, once again, to that night we'd had on the roof of my house... that night that was becoming almost as far away a memory as my old family life. Which was exactly what I didn't want. Not for that night. That night wasn't just any old memory. That night, I'd felt love. Or what seemed to be love, at any rate. I still felt that things weren't quite in my favor yet, as far as letting that word in again... especially if Zim was going to start acting weird again. He'd just been so protective of me on the battlefield… what was with this awkwardness now? It was like something was holding him back. Really far back. "Remember? And I helped. So what wouldn't I understand?"

"Fine," he caved, staring at me with eyes that could spark. "Remember when I told you that I'm... I'm missing a good sixty years of my life, in memories?"

"Yeah..?" I prompted.

"Well, there are some things that were gone that aren't staying gone," Zim said, his voice taking on a tone both dark and terrified. "And whenever something else, like... like this thing about Ira comes up... it just knocks me around more." Oh... damn it.

I shrugged and said, "That's something you can talk to me about. I don't mind."

"I just don't think I can."

"Zim, trust me, I—" I began.

But just the look on his face at that point was enough to cut me off. His eyes widened, and I could have sworn I saw little flecks of bloody Irken red in those irises so otherwise human. And then he grinned, almost too broadly, before erupting into laughter. "Trust!" he echoed, pushing past me. "That's a good one, that _is_ a good one! Trust is something I'm supposed to know, right?" Slightly perturbed and almost frightened at this awkward shift, I followed him at a careful distance, and when we both stood at the center of the common room, he turned and went on, "If I want to be human, I'm supposed to understand how to trust, but how am I even supposed to do that when nobody I've known my entire life has _ever__trusted__me?__"_

"I trust you!" I protested.

"Do you, now?" he snapped. "Do you really, Gaz? What's that thing you need to wait _until__April_ to tell me?"

"Zim, that does have to do with trust because you need to believe me when I tell you that it's really not something you'd want to hear right now!" I hollered at him.

"You know what? That's all anyone's ever fed me," Zim growled. "All I've ever known is this constant, _you can ' t know this, you 're not ready to hear that._ I'm not a child, and I certainly don't think of myself as fragile." Outstretching his arms, he shouted, "What's the big secret, universe? When will _Zim_ ever get to know a _Goddamn thing?__"_

"Oh, not a child, huh?" I scoffed, folding my arms. "You're acting _so_ mature right now, I believe that."

"Gaz, I—" he started shouting. Showing a tremendous amount of will, however, he made himself stop. For several seconds, he fixed his gaze on me, and let himself study me. He looked me up and down, but primarily focused directly on my eyes. I couldn't even blink, once trapped. As he continued his study, I conducted a little one of my own, looking into him to find his human sincerity... but noticing, as well, that the hand of the Irken Machine still gripped him somehow; something was keeping him tied to the Empire, whether he wanted to be or not. That was the part that scared me. That was the part that kept me from moving forward. Because I had no idea how much of a part I was meant to play in Empire affairs, and no idea how separatist Zim's motives were. I just did not want him to hate me for my genes. "I'm trying," he finally said, amending whatever it was he'd been about to go off on a tangent about.

"Trying to what?" I wondered.

Zim forced out a harsh sigh and plunked down onto the sofa, leaning over his knees and glaring off at nothing, over to his left. "I don't know," he admitted. "Trying everything, pretty much. Trying and failing. Trying to fit in, to be human, to be a fighter, to just take things as they come and re-make my life. But it's just... it's like something else is there trying to build my life back in a different way, and it's all really—" He shook his head again, dissatisfied with his word choices.

"Gaz," he said, rather mournfully, "there are things about me I don't want you to know."

"Well," I said, "there are things about me I don't want you to know, either."

"Do I annoy you?" he wondered, then, staring right at me, his eyes pleading but almost angry at the same time. "If I do, tell me. Tell me, and I'll stop. I'll stop talking to you, we don't have to be friends at all, I'll just—"

"Stop it!" I hollered, bending over and shaking him hard by the shoulders.

"Stop what?" he wondered.

"I don't know! Being stupid!" I snapped. "Freaking me out! Just _stop it!__"_ While I yelled, Zim glared at me with those intent, dark brown eyes, analyzing my every move. "Where the hell is all this confusion coming from? I can't stand it when you sound all stupid and directionless!" I continued, shaking him again. "I'm trying to figure out who you are, Zim, but, I don't know, maybe I'm missing something. Why'd you come to Earth?"

"Eh?"

"Why're you here?" I demanded, staring him down. I grabbed his upper arms and held on tightly, not letting him turn his gaze for a second. He was pissing me off with all this 'one minute a fighter, one minute confused' crap that he was projecting, and I didn't want to deal with it. He'd had so much drive during the Incident. But at the same time, he was nice to me. Where was that? I wanted _that._ "Why'd you come back?"

"To—to fight for Earth," he said quickly. "Gaz," he winced, "my arm, my _arm__—"_

"Why are you _here?__"_ I demanded again.

"Seriously, let go of my arm!"

"Only when you answer m—"

Almost violently, Zim grabbed hold of my hands, pried them away, then yanked me down by my necklace—which, thankfully, was quite durable and could withstand being manhandled like that—and into a firm, unyielding kiss. He worked his hand around to hold me at the back of my neck, and as he persisted, the desperation of the action smoothed out into something a little sweeter; there was a warmth, a force of motion, and, for a short amount of time, nothing but total honesty. Startled, but not in any way put off, I gave back, sliding into the rhythm he'd started. A few seconds in, I dared to work one hand around to his back, where I gripped the fabric of his shirt at the spot between his shoulderblades, and felt a heat rise out to the air from the surface of his skin beneath.

Words like ice from a body of fire.

I'd never be able to figure him out.

I pulled back first, and he eased his grip, though his eyes continued to hold me. "Zim," I told him flat out, absently licking the remaining taste from the corner of my lips, "I don't understand you."

"That's fine," he said. "I don't understand me, either." The hand he'd had at my neck now worked its way against my jawbone, his fingers curling in for his knuckles to rub against my chin, where he nudged it up, just a little. "Sorry," he added. "My mind has just been in a thousand different places today."

"A lot happened today," I shrugged.

Zim slowly rose, at that point, and drew me in. "Yeah," he agreed on a low tone. "I'm so glad you're all right, after all of that."

"I can take care of myself," I protested. But I couldn't help it. I was exhausted, mentally and physically. And he was there. I rested my head on his chest and let him stroke my back. His actions were inconsistent, and therefore unnerving. He'd been impossible to read since the end of the fight. Maybe it was just the fact that his mind was in so many places.

If only I'd known, then, what that really meant.

"Sure," Zim said, laughing slightly. Cautiously, he took hold of my hand, paying mind to the ring I wore—the one he'd given me, the one he finally knew I'd found. "Even so, I want to help."

"When you said you were 'trying,'" I wondered, "was that a part of it?"

"Hmm?"

"Am I a part of it?"

He didn't skip a beat. "Of course you are."

From the corner of the room, someone cleared his throat. At first, I thought it may have been my brother, which would have been just perfect, but as it stood, I noticed as soon as both Zim and I turned, the one who'd entered was Red. "Meeting," he said forcefully, ticking his head back toward the grand hall. "And Zim, that Dib guy says he wants an extra side meeting with you."

"Sure," Zim said, clearly seeing nothing too wrong with the idea. I knew better. Shit... somehow, I had to stop it.

As we followed Red back toward the meeting hall, I grabbed Zim's hand and held on tightly. All of a sudden, I felt like I'd been hesitating. That I'd been doing something wrong. I really had wanted to keep the truth about my background from him as long as I could. After all, I hadn't even seen my mother yet. Dib had, though, and I knew what he was thinking. He was going to tell him. Too much was building up, now, for him not to be thinking that.

Our dad's old Network was re-assembling... or so it seemed, with Baudelaire, Haynsworth and Murasaki revealed to be old colleagues of his. The Corporation my brother ran had been an Irken target attack. Skutch had left us with the assurance that Tak herself would be making an appearance soon enough. My fourteenth birthday was not far off—and with it would come a private week with my mother.

Tallest Miyuki.

Something told me that my life was reaching a divide, and that line was going to be drawn at this meeting. My hand left Zim's when we entered the Board room. Around the table sat the usual display—Charlotte Baudelaire, Agents Cthulhu and Bloodrose, Professor Haynsworth and Lex... but now Ira Murasaki took Nacea's empty seat, and Zim, oddly enough, was ushered over to sit near Ms. Baudelaire. Where General Brakem used to be stationed during the larger Board meetings.

Our eyes met in mutual surprise. I then glared over at my brother before taking my own seat beside him. He only bowed his head. Whatever the hell it was he was planning... I didn't know.

Then again, we really were up against Tak now. He had to assemble the best.

I was just more worried for Zim now than ever, though. He'd fought well during the battle against Skutch, Skoodge, and the rest of Tak's army... not to mention he'd been the one to diffuse the final bomb. It was just such bad timing. The odd but invigorating little moment I'd just shared with him was proof that he was under more pressure than I'd thought. Dib worked himself too hard, but Zim was just plain getting pushed and pulled from all sides. His mind really was in too many places.

If he was in a labyrinth, I didn't want him to get lost...

But, as I was soon to learn, his head was more like a hall of mirrors, one surface forever reflecting on another, forever reminding him of his past, trapping him in too busy a present, with hardly any room to look forward. And it wasn't long until I learned exactly what it was those inner mirrors were reflecting.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Notes:**

Hello~~! ^^ Ackackack… I had a houseguest this week and was unable to get as much editing done as I wanted, so _next_ week will be a nice big meaty update! For today, though… hmmm~ :3 I feel like this scene is kind of all over the place, but that's sort of the way things are for these guys right now… ^^;; Coming up next is going to be the meeting and… a few very interesting reveals~ (I'm excited to start posting those reveals, and I keep wondering if I should do it all at once or space the updates out…)

Speaking of things to come, I am going to sort-of respond to a comment here, from last week's (Kokuhi)~ Ira Murasaki/Murasaki Ira/Purple is quite an anomaly. ^^ One of the reveals that will be coming up in the next few chapters does pertain to his name, so I will refrain from fully getting into the story's answer to that here. But I love Ira so much I want to make a couple notes: I did choose his name to be something of an abnormality—'Ira' in English, is an androgynous name (and I always saw Purple as quite feminine), and is one that can be pronounced (albeit differently) in Japanese as well, so it is spelled in katakana, being a Western name (though of course I love reading kanji, too!) :3 Again, much more on him to come~

But first up, Zim. Lots of Zim. XD I've loved the reactions to his PAK so far… its presence is definitely a dark one, but one I really enjoy writing~ I love all of the comments/reviews/reactions/responses so far; you guys are seriously awesome! (I just still have this awful nervousness when it comes to replying to comments… ^^;)

Gah, so many fun things coming, I promise! A big update is in the works, I'm so, so sorry I've been so awkwardly busy lately, things creep up like crazy. But coming **next****Friday,****November****11****th****,** will be a good, hefty update, with a good chunk of reveals and possible answers (though perhaps more questions as well)…

Much love~

~Jizena

– – –


	7. Trying 2: Connection

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Dib's Records_

It was weird that, despite his expressions of relief for divulging his real name and part of his past to us, Ira Murasaki still looked to Red for finalizations of decisions. His Irken-sharp purple eyes shot daggers at his so-called partner, yes, but he was asking permissions left and right. It happened when I invited him along to the Board meeting I'd called, and Red agreed, under the condition that Ira not tell any of the (what Red called) 'lower members' about himself. Or, rather, was told not to 'tell recklessly.' Whatever the hell that meant.

When I asked Red what was up with the awkwardness and permission-granting, just prior to the meeting, he snorted and said, "Look, Ira wasn't ours to begin with, but as long as I'm in power, he's not going anywhere."

"Why?" I demanded. "Why's he with the Empire, anyway?"

"He's being punished."

"Right. Why? And why him?"

"Look, kid, you ask a lot of questions," Red growled.

"Um, yeah," I shot back, "because I'm a concerned, sympathetic leader. Not some cold asshole who keeps everything to himself and takes just cuz he wants it."

Red steeled himself and glared down at me. "Are you _challenging_ me?" he asked harshly.

"Oh, what, has nobody done that before?" I mocked him.

"You wanna know what happened to Ira?" Red snapped. _"__He_ challenged me. And now he belongs to me. Got it? Nobody. Fucking. Challenges me." He prodded my sternum with one index finger on each accentuated syllable.

With that, he turned away from me, and continued onward toward the meeting hall. But he'd just given himself away. Irkens are so—almost irritatingly—easy to read sometimes. You either have no clue what's going on in their heads, or you know absolutely everything. Red was currently not hiding much. It was in his glare.

He hated being intimidated, but I had succeeded in doing just that to him, somehow. Or, somehow nothing—I knew why. And I caught up to him to test my theory, getting him to stop in his tracks.

"This is about my mother, isn't it?" I guessed. Red just growled and turned away. "It is!" I realized, walking around to stand directly in Red's way again. "Everything is all about her. The way you treat me and my sister, the way you treat Zim, and, since he was a friend, I'm guessing the way you treat Ira! It's all because of Miyuki, isn't it? You don't want me to stand against you because you wouldn't be able to stand against her, is that right?"

"Look, shut _up!__"_ Red hollered. "Nobody can stand against Miyuki, all right? Only one Irken in history has ever been able to even get close to her, and even that didn't end well. How she was able to procreate, and with a _human,_ of all things, is way beyond me, but I don't want some little half-bred know-it-all stealing my Empire from me, got that?"

"I don't exactly _want it,__"_ I reiterated, "and better me than _Tak,_ right?"

Oh, that shut Red up, and it shut him up fast.

He pondered my words for a moment, his sharp eyes focusing on hardly anything behind those awkward glass frames, and then he let out a compliant groan. "You really don't want the Empire? Even though you're entitled to it?"

"Entitled just cuz I'm Miyuki's son?" I guessed. "No, Red. I don't want it. I really, really don't. It's your Empire, you're the leader. Miyuki just gave me a task, that's all."

"What?"

"Liberation."

"Huh?"

"Irken liberation," I repeated, remembering my odd mother's ultimate goal that she'd told me about on the eve of my fourteenth birthday. "Get rid of the Control Brains and let Irkens function autonomously."

"That's anarchy," Red snarled disapprovingly.

"No it isn't, there'd still be a leader."

"Me."

"Right. You." God, seriously, this guy. I swear. Obsessive. _Obsessive._

(Not that I'm not. I'm just saying, Red was nothing if not extreme.)

"Fine," Red gave in, glaring at me again. "As long as you don't want it, I guess I don't have as big a problem with you."

"Joy," I said, knowing my sarcasm would sail right over him. "I'm so glad I have your approval."

Red, as I thought, paid the comment no mind, so I forced myself into a different frame of mind, and took my time preparing for the meeting. Once everyone was assembled, I noticed that we'd lost a great number of Senior Agents, including Nessie and Kappa, and Charlotte reported early on in the meeting that a few of the international representatives had fallen to the Irkens as well. My core team was still fine, though.

Well, minus Nacea.

Ira filled her empty seat, which only succeeded to prove, in my mind, the fact that dynamics around the Corporation were going to change. We had to account for our losses and press onward.

This is not the kind of thing anyone should be doing at fourteen years old. But there I was, doing it all the same. Taking charge and stepping up. I couldn't help, though, wishing that, for once in his life, my father would stop thinking about himself and make enough of an appearance in my life again to explain a few things. Dad was a subject Gaz and I would come to bring up between ourselves for some time to come. We were equally angry at him for his negligence, and equally hopeful that he'd return, that hope wasn't lost for whatever part of him had so dearly loved paranormal studies. That hope wasn't lost for the part of him that really was a father—because I believed that, somewhere in him, a light like that did exist.

Just about everyone at the meeting table that day was staring at me. It took me a little while to realize that it was not out of a feeling of loss of direction... it was concern. I must have looked awful, then, if that were the case, and Charlotte pretty much bluntly stated that once I opened the table up for discussion of the battle we'd just fought and managed to win.

"Sir," she said, "are you... going to be all right?"

"Dib," I corrected, slamming my head into my hands, my elbows propped on the table. _"__Dib,_ Charlotte. For the last time, my name is Dib. I really don't like this 'sir' business. Please stop."

"I apologize," Charlotte said, quickly and professionally. "Dib, with all due respect, I think perhaps we should cut this meeting short and reconvene at a later time. You look exhausted, and besides—"

"Charlotte, I want to finish this," I said firmly.

"Very well, Dib, but..."

"What?"

"Your shoulder looks horrible."

"Oh."

I dropped my hands onto the table and stared at my left shoulder. Lex had brought me a clean shirt to toss on (and which she'd actually had to help me into, since it hurt so damn bad to lift my arm above my head) after Ira had bandaged me up, but the edge of the bandage was a little visible out of the neckline of the shirt. It was a huge bandage, but, then again, it was a huge cut. Gash is more like it. Skoodge had really done a number on that shoulder... I'd been able to step it up for the rest of the fight, but that area was bound to be wounded and sore for a while. Talk about putting a damper on things. Oh, and he'd also kind of _killed__my__friend._ I looked over again at where Ira was now sitting.

Nacea was gone, I had to remind myself again. She was gone, and with her had gone a little of my granted abilities. I wouldn't see her anymore. I wouldn't speak to her anymore. That would take a long time to sink in... it really would.

Another casualty of the battle had been General Brakem, which was news both Charlotte and Victor had given to me prior to the meeting's start. Casting a glance across the table, I confirmed again that Zim had been given the General's usual seat.

This wasn't an accident.

Now, I can make rash decisions. I can also obsess over decisions for hours, days, or sometimes weeks. I didn't have that kind of time. We needed an army leader and we needed one now. Zim had stepped up and proven himself a lot recently. I'd personally seen him take down leagues of Irkens on the battlefield that day. On top of that, he was familiar with both Skutch and Skoodge, the new Commanders of Tak's army. If Zim really did want to fight for Earth, then I'd take this gamble.

"Zim," I said, letting everyone know that I was pretty much done talking about my own injuries and losses, for the good of keeping things going for everyone.

"Eh? Yes?" he replied, picking his head up after being addressed.

"Do you know whose chair that is, that you're sitting in?" I prompted him.

"I do," he said warily. "These chairs are arranged by rank rather than person, aren't they?"

"They are," I confirmed, "yes. So do you understand what it is I'm asking you?"

"With all due respect, I'd rather not be spoken to in riddles."

Huh. And, true, I'd rather not speak in them. Too much like Miyuki for my comfort. "Understandable," I said. "Zim..." I continued, sucking in a deep breath, and a hell of a lot of pride, "you've only been here for a few months, but you've already climbed to the upper tiers of Brakem's ranks. You've succeeded in the missions I've assigned you, and you haven't let this Corporation down yet. I'm accepting your offer to fight for Earth. Zim, I am hereby promoting you."

"Promoting?" he repeated, at the same time Gaz inhaled the word under her breath. My sister stared at me with eyes wider than I'd ever seen them.

"I'd like for you to be the new Commander of the SEC Army."

I had no idea how Zim was going to react to that. There were a number of possibilities, but in the end, for nearly a full, silent minute, all he did was stare. He gave me the most questioning look I'd ever seen from him. I was testing him with the position, and he was testing me with the choice. But the primary truth of the matter was... well, the original reason for our rivalry (his want and need to invade the Earth) was gone. He fought with such determination for the planet he'd once sworn to conquer.

"Why?" he finally asked me.

"Because," I decided on answering, "you're a reliable ally."

"Dib, seriously?" my sister wondered. If I didn't know any better, I'd say I heard an undercurrent of respect in her tone.

"I can't doubt myself right now," I said. "Zim, I believe you're one of—no, you're the most fit to lead the army now."

Cthulhu snorted, outraged. "You're leaving the army in the charge of a child?" he mocked me. "Kid can't be more than sixteen."

"Are you forgetting I'm even younger than that?" I snapped back. I certainly didn't look or act it, to the point that I still had a hard time accepting my age. "Look, Zim understands a few things the rest of you in the fighting force don't—Tak being one of them."

"Dib, it's an awful risk to claim I know her," Zim warned me. "Nobody knows her. She's completely insane."

"But you've actually witnessed, first-hand, her rise to power," I reminded him. "You know more about the thing she's using to pull strength. You knew her Commanders. We're up against something awful, here. She's unpredictable, yeah, but you've fought her and won, or at least evaded well enough, before. I want you in charge, Zim, are you going to take it or not?"

"I—"

"If this is a battle for Earth," Cthulhu interrupted, "why leave one of them in charge?"

"EXCUSE ME," Zim spat at him. "With all due respect, I'm fighting for a chance to be human. I care about this planet just as much as you do!"

"Likely."

"If you don't mind," said Red, cutting in and taking charge, "I'd like to state my opinion on the matter."

Slowly, from his position on Gaz's right, Red stood. His otherworldly red eyes disappeared for a moment in the light reflecting off of his thin rectangular lenses before reappearing again, more stern and focused than I had ever yet seen them. His broad shoulders squared, and he lifted his strong chin, achieving what I was sure was his desired effect: to strike some sort of fear into the crowd. A hush did fall over the room. Everyone was struck silent.

The Tallest had the floor.

That, I believe, was the first time I 'saw' him, too. In his seemingly tailored coat, with that lofty air... this man was indeed a leader. He was born to be. Born to reach out to crowds, to decide what was just and unlawful—all this time, the Control Brains had been holding him back. Red had his faults, but there was no mistaking his innate qualities. Red needed an opportunity to prove his skills as a leader, without mechanical interference. This was that time.

"I'm starting to agree that decisions can't be made too rashly, at least in the case of this battle," he said in a sonorous tone I had never heard him use. "Listen up. I appreciate everything your Organization is doing, the steps and risks each one of you is taking in the interest of subduing Tak. But you need more than just your best. You need Irkens. You need those of us who know the realities of what we're all up against.

"This kid is a leader," he then said of me, gesturing in my direction. I had not expected that. At all. I never, ever thought that I would hear Tallest Red compliment me, especially so soon after a conversation like the one we'd had just before this meeting started. Red, when not being given the floor, was almost entirely talk, I realized. Yes, a lot of things bothered him, and yes, he had a very disturbing obsession with owning things (worlds and lives included), but underneath it all, Red did want to fight for the right thing, no matter the method. Tallest Red won my respect that day. "He knows what he's doing," Red continued, addressing my Board about me, "even if he's a little green. He's the first, and still one of the only humans I've come to trust around here. I suggest you all do the same and trust this kid's judgment.

"As for this one," he went on, his eyes lighting on Zim, "he's got some growing to do, but believe me, I've seen what he's capable of."

"What exactly are you saying, Red?" I wondered.

"I'm saying you're right to let him take charge of your army," Red answered, giving me his attention, "but he's going to need help. Put me in, too." I know I saw Ira's Irken-affected eyes widen, and his jaw drop ever so slightly, once Red made that announcement. "Let me train the kid. Remind him of some Irken realities. He can organize your human army however he wants, but he needs a refresher course first."

Wow. Huh. I was confused by but not ungrateful for Red's offer, and maintained composure somehow, casting my glance from Red to Zim, who had remained almost modestly speechless throughout the meeting, then rose. "All right," I agreed. "Here's the plan. Cthulhu, preside over all army training sessions for two weeks. Report all progress to me. Have them carry on with usual drills as Brakem had instated. During those two weeks, Zim will train with Red. Tenn, you will also be present at all of those sessions."

"Gladly," Tenn grinned.

"I'll offer my services as much as I can, as well," Ira spoke up. "Dib, you do need to keep up training with that sword of yours, and Zim, I'd be happy to give you a few lessons, as well."

"That would be appreciated," I said, "thank you."

Ira nodded solemnly, then stared down at nothing. He looked a little empty. When his eyes weren't grabbing attention away, he did look almost completely human. There was still something off about the air around him, and I still didn't know all of the details behind what had gone on between him and Red that had ended up in his being forced into a Tallest's role, but I could only imagine how distanced he must have felt, at that time, from everything he'd known in his life prior to being with the Empire. He was, I was sure, going to be an even greater ally for us now that his truth was almost entirely out, but his heart seemed to be elsewhere. Somewhere far beyond the confines of both the Empire's reach and the Corporation's borders.

The meeting concluded not long after I'd made finalizations on the new army plans. Zim would be given two days to prepare, and talk strategy with Red, and then step right into position. It was a risk, but it was one I had to take. I had to admit that Zim, at least with his more rational human mindframe, was a pretty good strategist, and since he more than anyone understood Tak's motives, he had to be in that position now. I just hoped he'd stick with it and not betray any of my trust.

Or, you know, kill me once he found out about Miyuki.

As people were dispersing to various parts of the Corporation, to go about business in the wake of the sudden fight, I caught up with Zim, whom Tenn had already found and cornered into a conversation about line formations, and asked, "You are ready for the position, aren't you?"

"I—yes," he said, stunned. "You're sure you want to give it to me?"

"Weird as it sounds for me to be saying this, it makes more sense for you to take the seat than anyone," I admitted.

"Then, um... thanks," he managed. "I'll do what I can."

_You'd better,_ I thought but did not say. Plus, I had one more test for him. Maybe it was awful, but I had to have that talk. Just not here. Not quite yet. But soon... almost too soon.

– – –

Much later that evening, Lex and I took a walk through the large marble hall. Finding that the portrait room was open, we slipped in, and together, we stared along the wall of oils on canvases, at the history of the Organization our fathers had put so much of themselves into in their younger years. My girlfriend chose, for the most part, to stay silent, respecting my need to really process and think things through. She walked on my right, keeping a light but reassuring hold of that hand, asking me every now and again how I was feeling, both in terms of my hacked-up shoulder and in terms of how I was dealing with Nacea's death.

Standing there in the portrait room, I drew in a staggered breath and pulled Nacea's silver charm from my pocket. She was gone, but at least when touching that charm I felt as though I could somehow, eventually, find my Meekrob powers within me again. I still felt drained, even of my Irken abilities. My hand started to sting a little as I held the little object, and I winced and returned the charm to my pocket.

"Hey, Lex?" I asked, as a thought hit me.

"Yes?"

"You're not... you're not disturbed, are you," I wondered, "by the fact that my mother was an Irken? That I can do things normal humans can't?"

"If I were," she said, "you can rest assured I'd be distancing myself from you."

"Oh," I said. "Yeah, I guess that's true. What about the Meekrob stuff, then?"

"Hmm?"

"The fact that I was connected to Nacea a little," I clarified. "I don't really want to lose that connection to Meekrob..."

"Then, don't," Lex said simply. "Here's the way I see it. Severing connections tore up the original Organization. Our fathers fell onto different paths. Dr. Murasaki was... sort of removed from the planet entirely."

"Yeah," I said, starting to develop a headache from everything I'd learned in the past few hours, "I'm still trying to figure him out. Like, how and why he fits into any of this."

"I'm trying to sort that Tallest Red out, myself," Lex admitted, as we began to leave the room to wander the hall again. "At some times, he's adept, and at others—"

"Intolerant? A total asshole? Belligerent?"

"All those things, yes," Lex laughed. "But at the same time, Dib, there you have it—he's another connection. Daddy keeps on remarking how well you're doing, but he says you've got to take allies as they come."

"Yeah, I've been kind of figuring that myself," I told her. "That's why I offered Zim the title today."

"He's got a weird way of it," said Lex, "but it seemed to me, at the meeting, that Tallest Red is trying to make an ally of you, too."

"Yeah," I smirked, "so I won't overthrow him like Tak did."

"Get him while he's on your good side, then," my girlfriend suggested with a shrug.

"You think?"

"It could be worth the try. And as for the Meekrob connection, Dib, do keep it," she added. "Whatever that means you need to do. You can make the right decision."

Man. I was glad I found her. Or however that had happened. We were such an unconventional couple—we couldn't really date, we weren't sleeping together—but what we gave each other was a cleansing kind of emotional support. She totally had me pegged (I'm that easy to read, I guess), and she could tone me down... and she'd admitted that I had given her reason and room to slow herself down a little, to be less judgmental. Ours was a bond of knowing the right words. Words kept us close, and words held us up, and when words weren't enough, she could speak through music. She was a fighter, sure, but she'd mastered how to keep her calm while not immediately in the heat of battle. Which was exactly the kind of energy I needed to surround myself with.

So I took her advice gladly. I kept her words in mind as our walk drew to an end, and pondered how I could keep up connections... and how to determine which were the right ones to keep. Obviously, keep things friendly with Red. (Or, just don't piss him off.) And figure out how to rekindle a tie to Nacea's home. I just hoped the Meekrob wouldn't be angry, or think that I had let them down.

Wondering if there was a connection to the Meekrob through the charm, I daringly walked, once Lex had gone off to speak with my sister about a few things, into the primary segment of the main building, and down our hall to Red and Ira's room, finding the door completely open. Red was in there, sitting on his bed, a borrowed notebook computer resting on his lap.

"Red?" I asked, knocking twice on the doorframe.

"Damn tiny screen," he muttered, squinting through his glasses at the laptop.

"My Tallest?" I tried. "I have a question."

He looked up to speak to me, but said nothing.

"This charm," I continued, hoping he would find it in him to help me out. "It was left behind when my friend Nacea died. Is it related to the Meekrob at all? Do you know if it is?"

Red closed the laptop and set it on his bedside desk, then stood, fixing his glasses, and walked over to me, holding out a hand. "Gimme that," he prompted.

Cautiously, I let the little charm fall into his hand, which was far bigger than mine, even though he was only five inches taller. To my surprise, Red studied the charm carefully, taking in each aspect of it from each different angle, then handed it back to me and said, "I feel pretty stupid for not recognizing it just from you holding it out in the first place. My eyes suck, like this. That's the Meekrob insignia," he told me. "Ours is like this..." He traced it with his index finger on the door, and I half expected it to appear right there. "The Vortians have one too, as do the Nen and, long ago, the Kalleck. We're the most powerful forces in our known galaxies, which is initially why I felt like conquering all of them." He sighed. "Anyway, the insignias are roots of each race's power. If someone, like you, has been given Meekrob powers, but finds himself far from the planet or one of its inhabitants, bearing that mark can keep those powers just as strong."

"Bearing it?" I wondered. "What do you mean?"

"Either wear that charm all the time or somehow get the symbol imprinted on you," Red shrugged. "Like that symbol you already have... what's the word... tattooed on you."

"You saw that?" Not creepy.

"You were shirtless in the infirmary, idiot."

"Oh, yeah."

Red stopped himself from smiling when he then said, "I wouldn't be surprised if that symbol became the insignia for Earth someday in the future."

"We're not that powerful."

"But look at what you've already done."

"Huh?"

Red rolled his eyes and walked back into the room, going to the bookshelf and kneeling to grab a folded newspaper from the shelf second to the bottom, then brought it back over to me. "I've gotta keep myself busy in here somehow," he muttered, thrusting the newspaper into my free hand. "I asked your spokeswoman for a few of these today. On top of getting me to despise your planet a little less, I've discovered that the outside world really trusts you."

"Really?" I carefully pocketed the charm and unfolded the newspaper. And there was the name of the Corporation on the front page headline. It was a local paper—might I say, now, just to clarify a few things, though for secrecy's sake I will not disclose the exact location of my Corporation, that I have always lived somewhere in upstate New York—but underneath the segment Red had handed me was one of statewide interest, and underneath that a national one. Each newspaper segment spoke of the Corporation in one way or another. "Can I... borrow these?"

"I'm done with 'em," Red shrugged.

"Um... thanks," I said, folding the newspapers back together. "I mean really, thank you. For identifying the insignia, and for the papers and everything."

"Dib?"

"Huh?"

Red's eyes narrowed in stern focus. "Even though we don't really have to," he said, "and even though I'm on my way to considering you an ally... I'd like to take the time to fight you someday."

"Yeah?"

"Before you come to accomplish your task in the Empire," he clarified, "once I'm Irken again, I want to fight you. Not like these training sessions, either. If you're after something that's mine, I'm fighting you for it, even if we've got an agreement."

Unintentionally, I laughed a little. Red and I were a lot alike, I realized, and in a way I wanted to see how he'd fight in a true one-to-one setting, too. "Sounds good," I said, nodding and taking my leave.

I leafed through the papers as I walked blindly down the hall, finding myself in the grand marble hall again before I knew it. I suddenly found myself standing outside of Bloodrose's studio, and, on a whim, walked inside. I'd had a lot thrown at me that day, and I wanted to get my mind off of it. As morbid as it sounds, slight pain was the easiest way to get me not thinking about how weird my life was getting. And besides, I _did_ want to keep my Meekrob powers, if only as a means to keep Nacea slightly alive. Plus, I pretty much had Lex's go-ahead, once she'd said to keep the connection through whatever means I needed to. (She liked my other tattoo; I was pretty sure she'd be fine if I got another one.)

After explaining the situation to Bloodrose, who had been in her studio reading (Conan Doyle, I noticed), she gladly accepted and decided that the best place for the Meekrob tattoo would be somewhere on my back. So, I took of my shirt, _again,_ and made myself as comfortable as I could on her studio table, requesting a second so I could lay the newspapers out and read them while she worked.

Bloodrose worked between my shoulderblades, using only black ink—she said the silver was beautiful but it would look strange on me. I let her do whatever she thought right, and read through the articles Red had given me, cringing and silently cursing whenever the needle penetrated my skin.

"Sir, with your shoulder, should you really be doing this now?" Bloodrose wondered.

"It's fine, it's fine," I said, waving it off. "Just... keep going. Thank you."

She beamed and kept on working.

The article from the local paper talked about how my father had refused an interview, once information about my name had leaked out into the public. God. I really wanted to know exactly what he thought of all this. For once in my life, I wanted my father's opinion. I truly did.

My father, I read, refused to give any reporter the slightest hint as to where the Corporation was, and then there was an excerpt from a statewide paper within the article, from, the writer said, 1988. That was the year my parents had founded the Organization in the first place. My mother's name was not mentioned, but there, plain as day, was my father's.

_Charles__Membrane, a recent graduate of Cambridge College of Massachusetts, announced today a project that will, unlike previous works, not be announced to the public. Membrane, 22, is known by most in Massachusetts and New York only through his inventions, which, though occasionally seen by the public, the young scientist has declared should not be revealed in their entirety to the American people. His recent project, he has claimed, will most likely be revealed to us some time in the 1990s._

There already was more about my father than I ever knew. The article continued after that excerpt to describe his later achievements—though again he would give no comment—and the writer's interview with a few random local citizens. They were asked what they thought of the Corporation, and whether or not I should reveal my full identity to the public. For the most part, it seemed, everyone had put their full faith in us, and thought it was dangerous for me to be seen outside my Corporation. Okay, weird.

The statewide paper was from a week after the Resisty attack. The report mentioned the ship's crash, and the alien attacks that had occurred in upstate New York afterward. The paper went on to describe the sudden disappearance of the ship and the alien 'threats,' continuing to say that the SEC was to thank for getting rid of them, though no one was available for comment. The national paper was basically the same, with a few words from government officials stating on record that we operated separately and were not a new branch of the CIA.

By the time I was done reading, also busying myself with a book review I found on the back page of the statewide paper, Bloodrose had finished. I thanked her a few times, and left the papers with her, at her request.

I took the rest of the evening to compose myself. The tattoo hurt a little, but what it represented made me forget about the pain for the most part.

As I made my way toward my office, still later on, I happened to pass by GIR (who I honestly kept forgetting about until the moment I saw him). Now, seeing GIR in the hall was usually something suspicious, but nothing seemed wrong in the air, so I seized opportunity when I could, and sent him on a tiny mission. I sent him to collect Zim. Yes, I felt drained as hell, but things had to be set in motion now, or things could get messy.

I had to tell my new army commander about this Corporation's tie to Tallest Miyuki.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Hey guys! Happy 11/11/11! Sorry this one's going up a little late tonight! I also have another chapter I'm prepping, too, and it'll be up really soon, I just have a little more work to do on it… so, more of a note once I post it, I just wanted to get this one up before Friday was totally gone, aaaahhh!

See you next chapter! :3

~Jizena

– – –


	8. Pasts 2: Zim

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Zim's Records_

As instructed by GIR (of all messengers...), I wandered down the hall and into Dib's office once everyone had settled down as best they could for the night. Death was still hanging heavy in the air, and I was not sure how long it would be until everyone would work themselves back into a regular lifestyle after losing such important Corporation members. Though the greatest blow to the organization as a whole seemed to be the death of the army's commander, it was Nacea's death that made the majority of us uncomfortable. Dib was acting indifferent now, but I wondered just how much the two of them had felt for each other, and how long it would be until he let go and outwardly began to mourn. I had been counting my blessings all day that Gaz had not been harmed at all—if it had been her instead... I shuddered at the thought.

I knocked cautiously on Dib's office door, and it opened before I could rap my knuckles a third time. Dib was sitting at his desk, only a small lamp lighting the room. His left hand was out and extended in front of him, and the light reflected almost ominously off of his glasses, shading him in a disconcerting way. I cleared my throat and stepped in. Once I had, Dib closed his oustretched hand into a fist, causing the door to close behind me. I gasped, stepping further into the room in shock, glancing behind me at the door, then back at Dib skeptically.

"How did you—" I began, trying not to show my continued disbelief.

"Have a seat, Zim," Dib said, lowering his hand. Cautiously, I walked up to the desk and sat in one of the usually comfortable chairs. That night, I was so on edge that I could not for the life of me sit still. I had no idea what this talk was about. Probably more to do with his making me the new Commander (or General? General sounded odd...). But, typical Dib, he was being weird about the whole thing. Dib sighed and set a small charm out in front of him on the desk, facing it towards me. It was Nacea's butterfly charm, now glowing with a soft white light. "I need to talk to you about what's going to happen from here on out," Dib continued, speaking very firmly as he always did to me, but in his voice was also a hidden sincerity. "To do that, I regrettably need to tell you a few things I've been hiding from you."

"Things like what?" I wondered. "Having to do with the army, or...?"

"Having to do with us," he clarified. "Me and Gaz, I mean. Our dad, too. The core of the Corporation. I've been hiding things about us from you."

"The Tallest also, right?" I asked, thinking it inevitable. I suddenly remembered that there was really only one Tallest, whereas I had been referring to two. I shook my head. "That is... Red, at least. Purple... _Ira..._ probably knows more about you than..."

"Red knows too."

My eyes narrowed on their own. I'd been furious with Dib before, but having so many secrets kept from me was something that was becoming annoying to the point of wanting to strike someone down. A part of my mind—thanks to that stupid PAK—was becoming more violent, the more I learned that I was not who everyone else remembered, the more secrets became revealed to me.

"I don't think he would have come here if he didn't; that's what I'm assuming anyway," Dib corrected himself. "You already know a lot more than I was ever willing to let you in on, Zim. I consider you an ally now. There's just more to this whole place than you know. My issue is, I'm afraid Tak does."

"Why would she?" I asked bitterly.

Dib straightened in his chair, his eyes now shadowed completely. It was absolutely eerie. In the shadows, he reminded me of the Mandylion who had come to me on so many occasions. "First of all, Zim, are you sure you're comfortable with taking on the role of Commander? I'm asking again only to make sure I have your total compliance, and loyalty to the Corporation. I mean, you don't have any intentions of going back to the Empire right now. _Right?__"_

"Of course not," I snarled. Dammit all, what the hell did he actually want from me? "If I can help it, I'm never going back."

Dib showed a ghost of a smile, then snapped his fingers, thus turning on another small lamp on his desk, bringing in just a little more light, so that when he sat back this time I could see him completely. "So you accept? Even with Red's terms?"

"With honor," I said firmly. "I'm not going to let Tak get ahead of us."

"Good." Dib was silent for a moment after that, and I did not bring in any other thoughts or questions, for fear that he would break his concentration or that I would just be more of a nuisance than he needed. I really did not want to be on Dib's bad side any more than I already was. "Okay," he said at last. "Now on to what I needed to tell you."

"I'm listening." That sounded like a neutral enough response.

Dib prepared himself, then spoke firmly. "So... for a while now, I've had Meekrob powers," he began. "They're weaker now, because Nacea is gone." I noticed he did not choose to use the word _dead._ "However, I have other abilities... as does my sister. They're hereditary, passed to us from our mother." He leaned forward on the desk and added in a somber tone, "You say you don't want to return to the Empire, Zim. I assume that's because you want to cut your ties with the Irkens. However, I have to ask you... how would you feel if you were working for Irkens now, as it is?"

"I'd say you were lying," I responded strongly. "Unless of course this has to do with my past, and I'm just a part of one big galactic setup." I almost expected the PAK to interfere, but it didn't.

"There's no setup that I know of, but there's one thing I do know," Dib said calmly, "and that's the identity of my mother. For years I thought her dead, just as the Irkens did."

"Your mother knew the Irkens?" I yelped in disbelief. I hadn't heard anywhere in Irken history of a previous encounter with Earth. Then again, I was missing a huge chunk of my memory. Nothing was impossible. Ira Murasaki was proof enough of that. Everything around me was so convoluted, I could barely tell you which way was up. Maybe Earth and Irk were connected, but to what extent?

Dib took in a deep breath. "Zim, my mother... _was_ an Irken."

No. ...What...? _No._ Impossible. Just... just _no._

That did it.

I stood, pounding both of my hands on the table. "I want to strike you so _Goddamn_ much right now!" I shouted at Dib, leaning down to scowl at him. He remained indifferent for the time being. "You expect me to _believe_ that? First Pur—_Ira_ turns out to be not only human, but a friend of yours, now you're telling me that your mother was Irken?"

"I don't completely understand it either, but it's the truth," Dib said as calmly as he could manage. "My mother came to Earth a long time after the Irkens had proclaimed her dead, and, I don't know... became human _some_how. While she was here, I guess, she met my dad and—"

"That's bullshit!" I cried. "You're human! Gaz is human!"

"Not entirely."

_"__FUCK!__"_ I screamed, pounding my right fist on the table as hard as I could, then slumping back into my chair. The force of my hit to the desk had conjured up a little crack in the wood on the edge. I folded my arms and sat before Dib, steaming. I did not want to make eye contact with him, but somehow he pulled my gaze back toward him. I could see the truth in his eyes, then, and I felt my own eyes water.

That was why Dib's eyes were becoming red. That was why even Red could be persuaded to listen to him. That was why Gaz could fight so well. Gaz and Dib were half Irken. No matter how much I did not want to accept that, I knew that I had to, because sooner or later, something would come of it. And I was pretty sure I was about to find out just what.

I repeated the expletive I'd just uttered, in a whisper this time, biting my lower lip, trying to get my eyes to hurry up and dry. If ever there was a time I wanted truly to cry, it would have been the moment that I realized that the girl I loved and wanted to spend my life protecting had Irken blood in her. The very reason I wanted to be human was actually a tie back to the world I'd come to despise. I ran a hand through my hair, then leaned forward onto my knees, holding my head in my hands, trying to process just what this all meant. Here I wanted to cut my ties with the Irkens completely, but there was no way that could happen. Should I still strive to become human, then? I wondered. "God..." I muttered, gripping my hair until I could feel my nails digging into my scalp.

"Zim, are you..." Dib began, his voice surprisingly gentle.

"I just... need a minute..." I said, my voice cracking as I spoke. This was the closest to actually crying I'd ever gotten, and I was trembling.

"I'll... I'll continue tomorrow, then," Dib offered, "since I really don't think you'll want to hear the rest of what I have to say right now. Honestly, you're... taking this a lot differently than I thought you would."

"Why?" I asked, almost bitterly. "You thought I'd really hurt you? Strangle you? Go back to yelling and putting up a fit like I would have back before I got a conscience?" I didn't look at Dib at all while I was speaking, but I could feel that he was studying me.

"S-sort of, yeah," Dib admitted.

I drew in as deep a breath as I could. It was staggered. My eyes were burning with tears that couldn't be released, and I wanted to scream but I held it in. Almost against my will, I said, "Go ahead and tell me the next part, Dib. I don't care anymore."

"It's... my mother's name," he said quietly. All of a sudden I could actually feel the flow of my blood, as it pulsed through my body, as it slowly but steadily seeped out of the open wound on my right arm. I could feel the bandage against my arm, trying desperately to heal the deep cut, but never succeeding. The blood was warm but uninviting. Just as Tak said that she could on several occasions, I could smell it for a brief moment. There was a difference between me and the person sitting before me. Though I was incomplete, my body was technically more human than his. All I lacked was a soul.

I knew what he was going to say. I knew it damn well, but still it surprised me when he said the word.

"Her name is Miyuki."

I choked and drilled the heel of my right hand into my forehead, growling a little to keep the scream from emerging. I couldn't take much more. Silently, I stood, and straightened as best I could. Dib stood as well, and I blinked a couple of times, trying to push back the tears I couldn't cry.

"I need to be alone right now," I said calmly.

"Zim, I—"

Trying to remain composed, I repeated, "I need to be alone, okay?" With that, I turned slowly and walked out into the hall.

My mind couldn't take much more. I staggered out into the corridor that connected to both hallways and stood in the dead center of the silent marble hall. Moonlight filtered weakly in through the roof windows, casting large and ominous shadows on the floor. I stared straight ahead at the darkness, half expecting my own thoughts to reach through the black nothingness and grab me in, and pull me down until I had nothing. Nothing fit, nothing made sense. I no longer knew who I was. Almost everything I knew now was a lie. Everything I'd been told was a lie. Not just the Tallest lying to me about being an Invader, that was long past. Everything, everything, everything that made up my reality was a lie. Why was I being shielded? Had I really wanted it this way, long ago? When I had erased my memories, did I want to make myself suffer this way?

Miyuki was alive. I hadn't killed her. She was alive.

And she was Gaz's mother.

I cried out, and a searing, unnatural pain scaled through me, stemming from the brutal cut Tak had carved into my right arm. It burned savagely, tearing at both flesh and muscle, reminding me that I wasn't human, and that my PAK would soon control me again. This time, though, it was waiting. Waiting until I knew who I had been. Then, when I remembered my past, I would return to the Irken state I'd been in during that forgotten time.

Finally, the physical pain I felt became nothing compared to the emotional pain that was slowly building up. I somehow knew that I had not revered Miyuki simply because she was an incredible Tallest. That was too common a feeling. I must have loved her.

I must have, but I didn't remember ever knowing love before.

_"__No!__"_ I shouted, taking out my anger at everyone who had ever lied to me, so-called friends included. The pain weighed so heavy on my mind and heart that I felt myself sink to my knees against my will. I didn't care that I'd fallen so hard that the impact hurt. "Fuck!" I cried out at the top of my lungs, not caring who heard me. My eyes burned with tears that I couldn't release. I growled and doubled over, cupping my hands over my eyes. "Just cry, dammit," I pleaded angrily. "What the hell is happening? _Who am I?__"_

It felt as though my mind was shattering. I lost control of my breath and practically started hyperventilating, eventually causing me to pass out, breathing heavily on the floor. Just before I allowed myself to slip into the pit of unconsciousness, I found myself whispering, "Miyuki, I'm sorry..."

– – –

Whether or not the PAK took over at that point, I was not sure. I hoped to God it hadn't, since that was all I needed. Even in my unconsciousness, I knew that I was simply passed out rather than blanking, my body wasn't moving... because this time I was dreaming. Whereas usually it felt as though only a few seconds had passed since my other will took over, this time it was different.

In my dream, I saw myself lying in the middle of the grand hall, only everything was pitch black, except for some sort of light source that allowed me to see my body. I was then awake, and seeing the dream through 'my' eyes. I stood up shakily, in the blackness, and took a few silent steps forward toward nothing.

Then, suddenly, I happened upon three figures; even without looking at each of them clearly, I knew who they were. Me. The first was the Irken form that I was used to. I could almost feel myself shiver upon noticing him. His PAK had dimmed, and though his eyes were open, they were barely alert. He stared blankly forward, unmoving.

"He can't move anymore," I heard a voice say, coming from my left. I turned to see the second of the three... versions of me... that I'd approached. The voice wasn't entirely mine, as I recognized it, and for good reason. The voice was human, yes, but it had a higher tone; the person I was talking to was myself, as I'd most likely have looked at around eight or nine years of age, had I grown up human. I looked at him questioningly, and he gestured to the Invader. "His time is over, so he can't move anymore," my alternate explained.

"And who are you?" I wondered.

My alternate grinned and put his hands on his hips. "You," he answered straightforwardly. He then moved his left hand to touch his chest, near his heart. "Inside, you want to be me. You want your past to be human, so that's what I am. You want everything about you to be human, right?" He lifted his right sleeve, revealing his flawless right arm. "You'd rather have your arm look more like this, huh?" he asked. "No more cut? You can't rewrite your past to _be_ me, but you can make sure you're more human in the future."

"Is that you?" I wondered, looking at the third figure. He was human as well, but he looked several years older, between fifteen and twenty years older, I guessed. His torso was exposed, revealing an enormous, awful scar across his chest, and he wore a sharp charm on a chain round his right wrist, a plate of armor on his left shoulder.

"Your hopes are too high," he said, stepping closer. I couldn't tell if he was speaking in ancient Irken or not. No... that voice—that was the voice from the PAK. The one that sounded only in my head. Hearing it spill from moving lips was utterly disturbing; knowing that this... thing was a piece of me was even worse. "I'm your real past, caught in your body. And I'll see too it that I will be your future as well."

"You're my PAK," I stammered, taking a few steps away.

"Clever deduction, human," he said, lifting his head. It was like looking into a distorted mirror. His features were mine, only sharpened and hardened with age and experience. He did not know sleep, as his eyes were accentuated with hellish dark circles beneath them, and bloodshot besides. The pupils of those hell-washed eyes were mere specks within Irken red irises that reflected no light. "I'm the you that has taken the path you should start walking. I have walked that path before and I shall walk it again. I'm taking you with me."

"I don't think so," I spat. "I don't want to be Irken anymore."

"Then I'll just have to take away your right to choose," the other snarled.

"What do you want?" I demanded.

My terrifying alternate grinned, and in that instant I knew that his words were right, in a way. This was the 'me' that had once been the spark inside the 'me' that strove to be an Invader. I'd discovered a better path for myself and begun my journey to earn the right to be human... but one wrong turn...

...And I could end up like this.

The answer was: "I want you to wake up now."

– – –

"No!" I shouted, sitting up with a start, alert again, gripping my hair tightly to get that disturbing image out of my mind. "No, no, get out! Get out, get out, _OUT!__"_

_"__I wasn't finished with you.__"_

My eyes widened and I stumbled back.

"Stay out," I warned, scrambling to my feet. "Don't tell me that dream just gave you..."

_"__You're just weak.__"_

"No," I protested again. "Stay the hell out of my head. What do you _want?__"_ I repeated.

_"__Control,__"_ said the PAK, angrily. _"__Give in and let me take control. The others are doing nothing for you. You don't have to remember a thing... just give me your mind.__"_

"Absolutely not."

_"__Then I'll have to take what I want.__"_

"Like hell you will!"

_"__Unless you know who you are, you can't fight me, human. You're already giving in.__"_

"No!" I yelled, rushing through the grand hall and back down the regular hallway in the main section of the building. To stop myself from listening to the bloodcurdling voice of the person I was but did not remember, I had to at least find out what I was up against. I had to know everything. Now that I knew about Miyuki, I _wanted_ to know everything. About Ira, about myself, about Red, about Miyuki. I had to know.

"RED!" I shouted angrily, throwing open the door to the room he shared with Ira. Red was there alone, typing some notes into the laptop that had been loaned to him. The light from the laptop was the only light in the room, and the sole Tallest looked dark and foreboding against the dim white gleaming of the screen. He turned to look at me, his glasses glowing in the light such that I could not see his sharp red eyes. Red said nothing in greeting, obviously reading my fury. My eyes narrowed and I demanded, "Everything, Red. Tell me everything. The reason you put me on trial. The reason I'm being plagued with these visions of the past. I want you to stop concealing things from me, Red, I want to know who I am, why I'm even alive! I need to know. NOW."

Red glanced back at the screen, then sighed and closed the laptop, turning on the light beside his bed at the same time. He stood and set the small computer on the dresser that also housed the light, stood, and turned to face me, arms folded. "I knew you were going to ask me to tell you, eventually," he said in a level tone. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather live protected while you can?"

"No," I told him firmly. "I want to rise to meet whatever the hell has been sitting dormant inside me. Whatever crime I actually did commit in the past. Without knowing about it before it consumes me, I'll lose myself. That's something I don't plan on doing, Red. I have a goal, and I'm going to reach it, no matter what."

"What brought this on?"

"Miyuki," I answered. "Dib told me about Miyuki. I know you know."

Red regarded me with apprehension. "Ah," was all he said. "And you're looking for answers anyway?"

I felt my heart sink, and my arm began to sting, but I grit my teeth and told myself to bear with the pain. Even if she _was_ half Irken, I could live with that. She was Gaz, after all. That didn't change.

And for her, I just always wanted to be me. The person I had become... not who I was potentially becoming again. That person I didn't know. Hardly a person at all. An Irken machine. That wasn't me. That was not me. Not the me that had built up new potential. Not the me that had an honest goal.

"My life as an Invader was a lie," I stated blankly, keeping my head up despite my internal pain. I hated referring to myself as a former Invader, even though that title had long since been truly stripped of me. "And several times, you, Ira, and even Tak have gone out of your way to erase even more of my memories... Tak with the first time turning me human, and you and your partner upon putting me on trial. You tried to erase me, Red. So did Tak. Why?"

The Tallest remained still for a moment, then replied, "You were becoming dangerous again, Zim. It was your wish that we not feed your intentions to learn more about your past, but now that the Prophecy is coming to pass, we have to go back on that."

"We?" I questioned.

"Take a seat, Zim," Red beckoned, motioning to his neatly-made bed. I walked into the room cautiously, making sure I'd shut the door behind me, and sat where he'd indicated, knowing I was in for a shock, and if I were to stand I would most likely trip and fall upon hearing some things.

"What did you mean by 'we'?" I wondered again, wincing a little at the stinging sensation coming from the wound on my right arm.

"We," Red repeated again, "the last remaining members of your Elite."

I felt myself go numb, head to toe. "Muh-_my_ Elite?" I gasped, gripping the sheets of the bed tightly in my hands, until my knuckles turned pure white. "What do you..."

"I told you, once, my Commander taught me how to fight," Red said, not making eye contact with me. "That was you, Zim." I felt a lump form in my throat, and I felt like I was drowning. I didn't remember that. Not at all. How could I, who before gaining a conscience had been spastic and unabashed, have possibly been the leader of the Elite? The greatest army of the known galaxies, and _I_ had been its leader? "Me, Tak, Skutch, Tenn, Skoodge. We were all a part of your ranks during Miyuki's reign. It was after you supposedly killed her that you erased your memories, instructing us, the only ones you spared from destruction along with your past, to keep secret everything you once were, providing a different past for you. We were instructed specifically to help you suppress your memories should they start to return. Tak, I suppose, took it a step too far, though she did have a better plan than our trial, I must admit. Ira and I began to take things too harshly, and for that, sir, I apologize."

I grimaced. "Sir?" I repeated, almost angrily.

Red caught himself and groaned, realizing what he'd just said. He grabbed a nearby chair and sat in it backwards, leaning against the back as he continued to speak to me. "That just slipped," he clarified. "Remembering who you were, back then, it just came out. You wouldn't let us call you 'Zim' back then. Only Miyuki could. Your title, you always said."

My lungs tensed up and my breath became heavy. Under the weight of my own confusion, I bowed my head, holding it in my hands, gripping my already messy bangs tightly as I tucked my knees up so my feet were resting on the lower bedframe. I closed my eyes to escape that awful thought of ever having been more than anyone told me I was, but the image of the sword plunged into another's body flashed into my mind and I cried out, snapping my eyes shut more tightly, rather than pry them open. I saw a swirl of colors, close in shade to white, the more I used my eyelids as shields.

"This isn't happening," I said, trying hard to assure myself that the real lie was what Red had just told me, no matter how many things pointed to that being the truth. "This isn't happening to me! I'm not an Elite! I'm _not__an__Elite!__"_

"Zim," Red began, sounding genuinely concerned, "I apologize for calling you—"

"No!" I snapped at him. "Shut up!" Bending over even further, my arm stinging like mad and the decay burning hot as a star, I cried out, trying to make every awful thought disappear. "Wake up!" I screamed at myself. "Come on, Zim, wake up, wake up, wake up..."

I drew in and exhaled several heavy, staggered breaths; I was hyperventilating. No matter what, I did not want to believe that I had been not only an Elite, but the leader of them all. Higher in rank than any Irken, save the Tallest. That couldn't have been me. At least, I didn't want that to be me. I knew I'd killed Lard Nar recently, and felt awful and guilty for doing so. A single person, whom I hardly knew, and I was still sore about it. As the leader of the Elite, the toll must have been _much_ higher. As a human, I didn't want to have to kill. I would oppose war, were I not in the middle of it. I respected everything around me. I couldn't imagine being so heartless as to have risen to the position of Elite Commander.

When it finally became clear that I was not dreaming, I forced myself to calm down. Worrying about who I _had_ been would get me nowhere in finding out other things. What I had to be concerned with was who I wanted to become. In order to do that, yes, I did have to learn a few things about my past. To earn a soul, I had to rise above that.

Still, I was terrified. "Red..." I started, forcing myself to speak but not moving out of my position, "please... tell me I wasn't... tell me I wasn't... you know..."

"What?"

"I don't know, a murderer! Heartless. Unfeeling. Evil, for all I know. On par with Tak or worse."

Red's silence was enough for me to pull my own conclusions. Hot tears stung my eyes just to taunt me, the heat from the decay rose and spread. "I don't want to talk about this anymore," I said firmly.

"Zim, as much as I hate to say it, we have to," Red told me. I really couldn't argue that.

Stiffly, I came out of my 'safe' position, but not allowing my feet to touch the floor. For some reason, I was afraid to, as though it would show complete acceptance of the situation. "Just, whatever you do," I warned, "don't call me 'sir' again."

Red tried not to smile. His eyes disappeared behind the moonlight shining off his glasses. "That was a mistake, don't worry," he assured me. "Besides, regarding your title, regarding what you had us call you... the humans are the only ones who don't know that about you—the past you. Ira included."

"How does he fit in, anyway?" I asked the Tallest, trying to turn attention away from me. "How did Ira get involved? When did he go Irken... why is he a Tallest?"

"Ira..." Red sighed again, this time sadly, and rested his head in his arms. "Ira... was a mistake." For reasons unknown, my heart skipped. Perhaps it was due to how much I was learning, in such a seemingly short period of time. "When the Control Brains found out that Miyuki was still alive, living a new life outside of our Empire, I was pressured into going to look for her. Upon some data collection, we learned about the human race, about their ability to reproduce naturally, and therefore about Miyuki's legacy. And her husband. He was the one we meant to take hostage that night, not poor Ira."

"You were after Professor Membrane?" Now, if _that_ had happened...

Red nodded, while still keeping his head relaxed on his folded arms. "I suppose my technicians confused the voice feedback, and the Invaders-in-training I sent down on reconnaissance brought back Ira, instead of Miyuki's husband," he explained. "The impact proved to be the same on her, however, and she went into hiding again not long after, so the Professor was of no furthur use to us, since in all the confusion I'd forgotten the warning about Miyuki's heirs rising to the position that I had come into by normal procedure. As for Ira, we took him—"

"Prisoner." I looked up, drawing in a slight intake of breath, and found Ira now standing in the doorway. He did not look very pleased, but then again, given the subject matter, I didn't blame him. "Must you be so gloomy, Red?" he asked, flicking on the main light of the room and walking over toward his own bed. "Lay it heavy on, him, why don't you," he continued, finally being the more aggressive one. "He's just a kid. I don't care if he was once your Elite Commander, I've always lived in the present." As he was taking off his long-sleeved overshirt, he looked over at me and asked, "Are you doing okay? Red isn't upsetting you, is he?"

I sighed, myself. "Nothing is out of the realm of possibility anymore," I replied, "so I'm trying to take it in stride. I asked him to tell me these things, I wanted to know."

Ira looked a little pained, then laid the overshirt on the foot of his bed and walked over to where we were, taking a seat on the bed an arm's length beside me. He smiled sadly and requested, "Might I have a look at your arm?"

"Ira, this isn't the time—" Red began, perking up a bit.

"I don't like your methods, Red," Ira told his partner flat out. "Does it bother you that I didn't adopt an Irken personality after all those years of playacting? I respect my true position, and therefore you can't stop me from being concerned. Zim, let me see your arm."

Surprised at how powerful he could really be while still being so soft-spoken, I rolled up my right sleeve and held my arm out for Ira to examine. He took it in both hands gently, touching his right hand to the edge of the bandage. It hurt, and I winced. "It really isn't getting any better, is it?" he sighed, leaning in for a closer examination, though he did leave the bandage on.

"Why is that?" I wondered.

"I've never seen anything like this before," Ira admitted, "but if I had to guess, I'd say it may be psychologically affected. If the mind is unwilling, usually the body won't heal as fast as it normally could. Simple as that. This wound is either sealed with something beyond medical comprehension, or it really is a kind of unwillingness. I wish I could help, Zim," he added, letting go of my arm, "I really do."

I examined my arm a bit myself, then rolled my sleeve down again. Before Red could speak again, I wanted to know Ira's story, in his own words. I was so confused, regarding who he really was, so I asked him, right out, "Ira... forgive how insensitive this might sound, but... who are you?" After a pause, I added, "I'm ready to hear it, now."

Surprisingly, Ira laughed a little, relaxing a bit. He glanced over at Red, as if to tell his partner that he'd best stay out for the time being, then focused his attention back on me and replied, "I'm Ira Murasaki. I'm a medical doctor, mostly specializing in pediatrics. For almost four years, I served as the family physician for the Membrane household."

So that explained why he'd been quick to lend a hand at the hospital when we'd first arrived. And why he'd said 'old habits' when first examining my arm by the fire. It did seem, now that I thought about it, that Ira really had been _trying_ to fit in among the Irkens all these years, usually doing so by mocking Red, and pretending to lower his intelligence. On the contrary, Ira turned out to be one of the most cerebral men I've ever met. And yet he'd been taken by the Irkens, tortured, and then punished, simply for overhearing a conversation between Miyuki and Professor Membrane.

"Ira, I—" I began.

He shook his head, somehow smiling. "It's all right," he dismissed. "I did take my punishment, but I was allowed to live, and for that, I must be grateful. Besides," he laughed, "I'm not entirely Irken when I take on the role of 'Purple,' anyway."

"No?"

"My PAK has no control over my mind."

Now that made sense. 'Purple' had never, as far as I'd ever seen as 'Invader' Zim, used the powers that one gains when they become the Tallest. The vast majority of Irken society would most likely overlook that, thinking he, like Red, only used his powers in tight situations. Miyuki, so I had heard, was the only one who truly used hers to their fullest.

"How did you become a Tallest, anyway?" I wondered after a pause.

"Red took pity on me," Ira replied, grinning. "It was punishment—serve the Empire—or death, and he doesn't seem like much, but Red's got a brain in there somewhere."

Red buried his head in his arms. "Ira, you're such an idiot," he groaned.

"Red's an Original," Ira told me, leaning forward onto his knees. "He told me, once, that his ability is to feel the need to give others a second chance. Pity, in other words."

"Shut up, okay?" Red said, finally lifting his head to look at us again. "Yes, I'm an Original. We all have abilities that normal Irkens don't; it's our strength and our downfall. By the way, Zim... all of us in your Elite... we were all Originals."

"Huh?" Now why could that have been, I wondered? Wouldn't that cause an uproar among normal civilians? Or perhaps the normal Irken crowd didn't care, because of the mind-controlling elements of their PAKs.

"Since you yourself are an Original," Red went on, "you wanted us to know what it was like. You searched through several hopefuls, somehow able to tell which ones of us were more like you. You wanted your Elite to be 'real,' you said."

"Woah, woah, wait," I said, holding a hand up. "I... _I__'__m..._ an Original?"

Originals: Irkens born with an ability specific to themselves, thus making them individuals, as opposed to pure-bred clones. Normal PAKs contain mind-controlling devices, and emotion regulators that keep the majority of Irkens under control. However, Originals were against the grain. Under constant surveilance by the Control Brains, Originals have been considered a threat to Irken society for generations.

The ancient Irkens lived like the modern Originals, before the PAK system came into play along with the Brains. The abilities of the Originals vary from Irken to Irken, and are often feared by the 'mundanes.' Usually an Original has only one ability, but that is enough to make him or her unique. For example, Tak's ability as an Original is the gift of hypnosis. Skoodge has a PAK that prevents him from meeting unnatural death. As for Skutch and Tenn, I was not sure at the time, but I had a feeling I was soon to find out.

And as for me...

"Yes," Red confirmed. "All the Commanders of the Elite in the past have been."

"Then it was _me_ they were after..." I realized. Skutch had told me he was after the former Elite Commander. That, I now knew, was me. "Why?"

"If I had to guess," said Red, "it's Tak's selfishness again. She followed our leader with stars in her eyes."

Fucking Tak! Suddenly I was overcome with an overpowering desire to find her and kill her. As soon as that thought entered my mind I shook my head fiercely, getting the notion out once and for all. Even if it was Tak, I never wanted to intentionally kill anyone again. The thought was awful.

All this new knowledge... all this talk of me being an Elite, of me being the Commander that Tak wanted to re-recruit—yes, it was terrifying, but at least... at least I _knew._ I wasn't alone against my PAK anymore.

Despite all relations to the Empire, I was still in love with Gaz. Regardless of who or what I had been during Miyuki's reign, I still wanted to be human. The more I knew about my past, the better I could face down the controlling attitude of the PAK, I thought. The better I could use that knowledge against Tak, when the time came.

I'd started off that conversation with Red afraid. Now, though, I was somehow gathering confidence, dark as things were.

"So she'll be back soon," I realized, staring off into space, hanging my head a bit. "Red... what was my ability? Was it deadly?"

"To you it once could have been," he replied, "but now I think it's keeping you alive."

I lifted my head again. "What is it?"

Red and Ira exchanged glances, and I noticed that Ira shook his head. "You'll find out on your own, believe me," he told me. "It's much better that way."

"Ugh, whatever," I muttered. I'd learned enough, huh? Time for one more secret.

Ira saw that I was upset, and sighed, standing directly in front of me, now. "You've got a lot on your shoulders, don't you?" he asked sensitively.

Not knowing what else to say, I replied, simply, "Yeah. God," I groaned, messing with my hair, "there's so much I want to do, so much I want to _be..._ but my own past is holding me back. I have to be strong, I have to protect Gaz, I just... I have to keep on fighting for what I want, but I don't know where to start. It's awful. I mean, I've been having these flashes from what I guess is my past, and it's been creepy, but now I guess I'm glad I have a jumping-off point for them. But still, if I was anything like Tak, or worse, if she actually followed me... I don't want to be like that again. People can change. Right? I want a new life, I want to... I-I want to..."

"Just remember, you can't do everything," Ira said kindly. "There's only so much you can do at a time. If you want to be human, first take a look at yourself, at those around you. How old are you?"

"Sixteen," I replied.

Ira smiled. "See, now?" he said. "You're not a god. Your strength and your will are gifts, Zim, and you've been using them well... but if you don't consider 'real' life, those things could consume you. Remember that. Fight for what you believe in, but know what you are."

"Yeah, but—" I began.

"You think too much," Ira laughed, bending a bit so we could speak eye to eye. "I'm glad you're choosing this path, but there's something I feel I've got to say."

"What's that?"

He grinned. "Act your age, kid," he said. "Gaz would appreciate it I'm sure. You don't have to fight all the time."

"Yeah," I sighed. "I know."

No, I didn't have to fight all the time. I'd be selective: what I was fighting for, and what I was fighting against. Those two things would probably cross, but I'd just have to make myself ready. Become the Commander of a different army. Earn my spot in the human race.

Do whatever I had to do, be whatever I needed to be. And all, in the end, for what I knew now more than ever that I truly loved.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Okaaaaaay, wow. Wow. A lot happens in this chapter. XD I realized, going back through this, that things do get really convoluted and insane in this part, but I'm kind of a sucker for—I'm gonna go ahead and admit it—Jekyll/Hyde situations (the 1994 concept cast album of the Broadway _Jekyll__and__Hyde_ is another huge nod I need to make, here)… so the PAK isn't going away, but at least Zim's figuring out some new ways to approach its presence…

Gaz is returning next week, and other reveals aren't far away…!

(Also, an Ira note. I swear to God I watch this show more obsessively than should be healthy. My friend and I watch Tallest episodes over and over and analyze Purple's actions and line deliveries like crazy. Random note is random. Honestly, my relationship with this show now is 'let's watch for every subtlety in every character's movement.' I do it with Membrane, too. It's a disease.)

Next week. Ohmigosh next week. One of my favorite chapters is coming up next week. We got into some seriously heavy stuff today, but brighter things ARE indeed ahead. Oh, part three, oohhh, part three. I am loopy with insomnia right now. I should have tea and sleep.

Everyone, thank you all so much for your readership~! ^^ I hope I'm not confusing you too greatly. Things do get odd and tossed about, but answers do come, I promise! And things get better. They must get dark (really, like, reason-this-is-rated-M-for-violence dark) before they can get better…

This note is getting rambly, I apologize. D: And I shall see you next week, on **Friday, November 18th****!** :3

Much love,

~Jizena~

– – –


	9. Trying 3: You Broke Him

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader__Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Gaz's Records_

It was too suspicious that Charlotte Baudelaire kept on sending me on errands after the meeting. Or, not errands, but performing acts of leadership while my brother 'recuperated.' I had to go visit all the dorms, assure people things were fine (even though things were certainly _not__completely_ fine), and explain to some what exactly had happened. By the time I actually had a spare minute to come back and check up on Zim, who for all I knew had been discussing army stuff with Red the entire time, his door was shut tight. Completely overstepping just about every boundary ever, I creaked open his door and peered inside his room.

He was asleep. He slept, I noticed, very, very still. Just like the night he'd first come to the complex, his breaths were uneven and deep. One arm was folded under his head, the other splayed out to his side, just over the sheets that fell over him without regard for form or symmetry. He looked so human, when he slept. So blissfully human.

And yet somehow distraught.

So as not to disturb him, I backed out and closed the door silently behind me, hardly even hearing the click of the doorknob in the dark hall. The door was open and the light was off in my brother's bedroom, too, I noticed as I walked by. Hmf. So much for needing to recuperate. Figured Dib wouldn't go for any of that 'rest up while you can' stuff, no matter how many people told him that was what was best for him. I swear, I have the most stubborn brother in the universe.

Not to mention the most hypocritical.

No more secrecy in the Corporation? My ass. Dib just _loved_ keeping secrets of his own. Or, maybe not even that. He just liked doing things. Whatever he wanted to do. He'd just fucking do whatever he wanted and not necessarily consult anyone. Just like Dad. He'd just plain make choices, regardless of who would get hurt because of them.

Maybe—_maybe_ I could see how he was well-intentioned. I just hoped he hadn't meant to put other people in uncomfortable positions. Myself at the top of that list.

I found him in his office. Of course I found him in his office. Just like finding Dad in his lab. It was already getting old. But it was also making me uneasy, wondering just how much like my mother I may have been. Zim had compared me to Tallest Miyuki, even before I'd known she was my mother. Maybe Dib and I were just doomed to be carbon copies of our parents. Haha, get it? Irkens are clones.

Ugh.

"Dib?" I said, opening his office door without knocking.

"Gaz!" he yelped, looking up. He was seated at his desk, flipping through a large book with his eyes hardly focusing on the pages. I knew something was wrong the second I met his gaze. Because he looked guilty. He looked horribly, horribly guilty. Light reflected dully off of his oval glasses, his already-awkward hair was a mottled mess. Guilt just plain loomed over him. Guilt and regret, things I wasn't used to seeing in my older brother.

Meaning he'd really, royally fucked up.

"What did you do?" I demanded, bypassing any other formalities.

"What?"

"You look like a kid who just broke a window," I snarled, shutting the door behind me and storming up to his desk. "Why do you look like that? What did you _do?__"_

"Gaz, you're kinda getting ahead of yourself here," he tried to reason with me. "N-nothing's wrong."

"You're stuttering."

"No, I'm not!"

"Now you're just plain being stupid, Dib! Tell me something!" I ordered. "Tell me anything. I don't care. But you'd better let me in on why you look so guilty right now."

"Gaz..."

"Because if you don't," I warned, slamming my hands down on his desk and getting right up into his face, "I'm just gonna have to break you down piece by piece."

Dib shrank back in his chair. "Do you mean that literally or metaphorically?" he dared to ask me.

"You choose."

"Oooooh, crap... s-sorry, you just," Dib stammered, "you haven't really, uh, you haven't really threatened me in a while, so—"

"So you'd better know I mean it," I hissed. "Look, I wasn't expecting coming in here and yelling at you, or demanding anything of you, but you look like you have a secret right now and that's not okay. Why was I off doing all your work for you today? Huh? Here. Let's start with something easy. Something I kind of like you for. Why'd you promote Zim?"

"Huh?"

"Why'd you promote Zim to General?"

"Because I admit he's a good ally and I appreciate his work!" Dib shouted, sitting up straighter to challenge me more evenly. "What other excuse do I need? You were there at the meeting, Gaz, jeez."

"Right. Okay. Then what were you doing this afternoon? I know you were with Lex for some of it, but what about the rest, Dib? What about the rest of today?"

"Gaz—"

_"__DIB, __WHAT __DID __YOU __DO?__"_

"I told Zim about Miyuki!" my brother shouted, standing, as if that alone would get me to shut up.

Oh. Quite the contrary.

"You what?" I growled.

"I thought he had a right to know," said Dib, "so I told him."

"Without me?" I said, hearing my voice shake before I felt my body tremble. "Dib, you told him about Mom without me? What kind of brother are you?"

"I don't know! Not a very reliable one, I guess," he admitted.

"That's right! Not a very—wait..." I said, shirking back. "You're okay with that?"

Dib sighed and folded his arms, still looking like he'd done something awful. Even under the open black sweatshirt he was wearing, I noticed that his left shoulder sagged slightly more than his right. Even as angry at him as I was, I told myself not to punch him there. That wound was probably going to hurt for a very, very long time.

"Look," he began, circling around his desk to stand close—but not too close—to me, "I had a talk with Zim. It was kind of... me giving him one final test before I fully decided to trust him."

"And what happened?" I asked harshly, glowering up at Dib.

"He kind of, um... he didn't take it well."

"YOU THINK?" I shouted. "God, Dib, you can be stupid. Why did you think that was a good idea? Why did you tell him without me being there, too? Why are you keeping things from me? Why aren't you running things by me? I thought we were past this. I really, really thought maybe you trusted _me._ Dib, what the _hell_is your problem?

"Actually," I ranted on, "you know what? No. I know what your problem is. Your problem is this _obsession._ Your _obsession_ with the Irkens, and with just... you just... you just _still_ have to be better than Zim, don't you?"

"Gaz, you're rambling," Dib warned, setting his hands on my shoulders. "Look, I want to—"

"No!" I snapped. "Tell me how it happened! Tell me how he reacted! Tell me what you _DID!__"_

"Okay, look!" he hollered. "Look, I was _testing __him._ I was _testing __him,_ Gaz, you can't deny that he's a little—out there."

"No shit!"

"Gaz, stop!" Dib barked, moving his hands from my shoulders to my wrists. I hadn't even realized I'd had my fists at the ready to strike him if he pissed me off enough. "I was expecting a more violent reaction from him. I was expecting something a lot worse than how he actually handled it. But he didn't get violent, he just..."

"Just what?"

"Just kind of shut down."

I hung my head, not wanting to look at my brother anymore. I felt like people were trying to force me to feel helpless. Like I couldn't make decisions or do anything on my own. Sure, plenty of thirteen-year-olds will feel that way, but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say I was carrying just a little more baggage than a lot of girls my age. I had a heritage I couldn't accept, and a family more made up of a hodgepodge of people I hadn't seen since I was in preschool than actual blood relations that cared about me. What was hurting me most was that Dib, my older brother, the only real family I had ever, ever made a connection with, had gone behind my back and broken the only friend I'd ever found on my own.

"Why did you do that?" I asked him, my tone as tense as my entire body.

"Huh?"

"Why did you let him break down?"

"I didn't say I let him. I was just... Gaz, listen, I have a lot going on, you know." Oh, God, here we go. I stared at him again, simply to show him that his problems weren't really my issue at the moment. And I got the same feedback from him I felt I was always getting. Ego. Ego, ego, ego. Justifying things _for __himself._ Not for me. Didn't I know someone else like that. Imagine. "I suffered a loss today, this Corporation suffered losses today, and I had to test Zim for the good of this organization and for peace of mind in my own job and—"

"Good of the organization?" I spat.

"Gaz, would you _listen __to __me?__"_

"NO. You know what? You sound just like Dad!" I shouted, shoving him away. "Don't even try to deny it, Dib, you are _just __like __Dad!__"_

"You take that back," he scowled at me in warning.

"I'm not taking it back, because it's true!" I snapped. "You are _just__like__him,_ Dib! Holing yourself away to do work. Only spreading secrets when it's convenient for you to do so. Obsessing, Dib, _OBSESSING_ over things you really shouldn't be concerned with. You broke him!" I screamed, cupping my hands over my face to hide the fact that I'd just shaken myself to tears. I hadn't expected to. I hated crying. Still, after all this emotional shit that had been piling up, I hated crying. It wasn't me. I hated changing. Maybe because changes around here happened too quickly and too jarringly, but I utterly despised it. "I wanted to be the one to tell him! I was going to after I met Mom! I wanted to be the one to tell him, Dib, he's my _best __friend_ and you _BROKE __HIM!__"_

"Gaz—"

"And you wanna know what else?" I carried on, slapping away the hand he offered out to comfort me. I glared him in the eyes, his red-flecked eyes, and said, albeit strained, "It's always about you. ALWAYS—" I kept going when he tried to cut in— "about... you. About what you think is convenient. It's always. About. You. And _that,_ Dib, _that__—_if nothing else—is why you are no better than Dad. You are no better... than _anyone._"

"Gaz..." he tried again.

"Leave... me... alone..." I growled, pushing Dib back for the last time that evening.

I stormed out of his office and down through the halls into my room, where I didn't say hello to Lex; I simply grabbed my pillow, muttered to her that I didn't want to talk, and curled up on my bed with my pillow clamped over one ear while I pressed the other into the mattress. My brother had no right to be treating me like this. No right to be treating _Zim_ like this. No right. _No __right._

What the hell was I going to say to Zim the next time I saw him? I was on breakfast rotation with him the next morning... what the hell was I going to say? What was _he_ going to say? Did he hate me? Did Zim really, actually hate me now?

Did I care?

Well—yes.

But seriously. _Seriously?_ Right after I'd told him about the ring. Right after a door had opened for us to start getting closer again, Dib shoved us away. Maybe I was overreacting. Or I wasn't seeing every side of the situation. Or some crap like that.

All I could think of was how broken Zim must really have felt. How detached, how derailed. He'd been trying so hard to break away from the Irken Empire, right? Now this. Now he knew I was a part of it.

Finally, nerves got the best of me, and I managed to fall asleep. But even in my own broken state, I refused, utterly refused, to cry.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Hey everyone, sorry for the super late update today! I've been doing a lot of thinking about this saga, lately, but I've also been feeling kind of checked out. It's so weird coming at this from a re-re-re-editing angle, because every once in a while, there's just _so__much_ I want to change, especially as my tastes and styles are changing. The scene that was originally here was much, much different. I stared at it for a while this afternoon and just… didn't like it anymore. ^^; So I started writing this one, and I just feel that it fits a lot better. Sorry, this may not make sense (as I've never published the original version), but I have been thinking a lot about the continuity of the saga, and realizing that I've been making a looooot of changes. All for the better, of course! But the direction I want to take this now is so different from the original; I like it a lot better and I am so, so insanely pleased to be getting so much amazing, positive feedback on the story that I am now posting. Again, I've been working on/revisiting this for so darned long, I just want to keep adjusting it forever. So I really, really apologize for all of my hesitated and late postings, but most of it has to do with wanting to change things around a lot, and figure out what needs to change in future chapters because of choices such as this chapter was. So… sorry for the crazy rant here~ One of my favorite (and mostly untouched!) chapters is up next, and I'll be less nutty in my note there I am sure. XD

Much, much love to everyone who reads,

~Jizena~

– – –


	10. Trying 4: Signals

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader __Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Zim's Records_

Gaz and I were on breakfast rotation the next morning. I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, but I managed to wake up at seven. After giving myself some time to lie awake and clear my head a little (and this was no easy task, it never is), I left my room silently, pulling on a red sweatshirt over my nightclothes (which consisted of just basically a loose shirt and grey flannel pants) before braving the kitchen.

As I walked through the sitting area to reach the kitchen, I saw that Gaz was there already, taking milk out of the refrigerator. I didn't know who did the shopping for the Corporation, but somehow we always had plenty of food and drinks, so I didn't question that much. Gaz straightened, setting the milk on the counter, then noticed me and drew in a slight gasp, as though she hadn't expected that I'd actually show up.

We looked at each other in silence for a moment. She didn't look any different to me at all, even now that I knew everything about her lineage. She was still Gaz, and my heart still leapt whenever I laid eyes on her. I felt a sting in my chest, as if to say, _Idiot, __of __course __she__'__s __no __different._

She drew back a little, seeming to be studying me, testing to make sure I was okay. Or testing to make sure that I was still human, at very basic. I had half a soul, didn't I? That accounted for something. We were both on a borderline.

Gaz's eyes were slightly bloodshot, and pink around the edges, but dry—wide and dry. She hadn't been crying, but she was clearly upset, and I hated to see her like that. It was obvious that she knew about my conversation with Dib the night before. As far as I knew, maybe she'd overheard me talking to Red and—and Ira. But she knew that I knew, and we were both effected. But I wanted this to make us stronger. I always wanted her to feel like she was as strong as I knew she was.

I unintentionally heaved a heavy sigh as I let myself just look at her. She was wearing a tight black undershirt and silk purple pants that reached down to above her ankles, and, I noticed, the black sweatshirt that I'd lent her during the Incident. That felt so far away, now. The challenge of that week had been nothing in comparison to the waves we were riding now. I missed how simple it all seemed, and hoped that we could work around the new obstacles to make things simple again.

"Um... hi," she greeted, looking uncomfortable with the silence.

"Hey," I greeted in return, making myself smile as I walked into the kitchen. "What're we making?"

"Zim..." she tried, backing away as she hugged her arms into her.

"We have plenty of eggs," I noticed, upon opening the fridge for a look inside. "Eggs Benedict sound okay?"

"Zim!"

"We have English muffins, right?" I asked, pulling out the tray of eggs and walking over to the counter that openly faced the sitting area.

_"__ZIM!__"_

I'd been trying to avoid talks of Miyuki for her sake, but that was probably what Gaz was about to bring up, so when she insisted, I looked over at her. "Hmm?"

She downcast her gaze, then turned away from me and opened the cabinet above her head, where the glasses and mugs were kept. "Aren't you mad?" she wondered.

"Me? No," I lied. "I just wish I'd known sooner." Truth.

"I can't believe Dib just went and—oh, hell! I can't reach that stupid shelf!" she griped, cutting herself off.

Just as force of habit, I walked over silently and saw that the cabinet hadn't been properly restocked, and the only glasses were on the top shelf. I calmly took down two glasses and handed one to her. "Here," I said, letting my eyes meet hers as I handed her the object.

"Thank you." She kept her eyes on mine for a moment, then turned away and opened the milk. "You want some?"

"No, water's fine for me for now." So it didn't look like I was lying, I walked over to the sink and poured myself a glass, hoping a day would never come when I'd burn up at the touch of water again.

"Zim, you're being awfully quiet," Gaz observed.

Taking out the ingredients for hollandaise sauce, I said, "So you know about the, eh... talk I had."

"Y-yeah..." said Gaz, going back to the fridge for Canadian bacon. Why we just happened to _have_ Canadian bacon, I didn't know, but, again, I didn't question it. "He said you broke down. Are you okay?"

"I'll be all right," I shrugged. "It... it is what it is. I mean, I've also got an interesting history w—" I shut my mouth. I hadn't meant to start that. I didn't mean to consciously allude to my past life. Miyuki was a whisper in my mind at best. The PAK remembered her better than I did. And I was in control here.

"You... what?"

"Nothing."

"Oh."

I silently mixed everything for the sauce into a pot, as Lex had taught me some time ago, quickening the process with a whisk. Cooking is incredibly easy. All one has to do is follow directions. After setting the pot onto the stove and turning up the heat, I asked Gaz to watch it for me, once I'd stirred it a couple times. She set her other things to the side and silently moved toward the stove to take over.

It was just a little too warm in the kitchen all of a sudden, so I removed my sweatshirt and drank down the water I'd poured for myself. _Stop __being __so __stupid __and __just __talk __to __her,_ I told myself angrily. Especially since I was sure we were way, way beyond that trivial old _"__How __was __your __day?__"_ by now.

"Oh, God, I can't even stir this stupid thing right!" Gaz groaned, feverishly flipping the whisk around in the pot, gripping the handle fiercely.

"Ah, hey, it's okay, just slow down," I said, going to her quickly and putting my hands on top of hers, again out of pure force of habit, wanting to have contact with her. I felt her gasp, but I stayed as I was. "See? You're stirring too fast," I went on, speaking more quietly now, unfurling her fingers a little so that her grip on the whisk was lighter, then helped her loosen her grip on the pot's handle as well. "Just be patient, and it'll turn out okay."

_God, __am __I __digging __my __own __grave __or __what?_

_ Just __be __patient, __and __it__'__ll __turn __out __okay?_ If that wasn't me talking about the relationship I wanted to have with her, I didn't know what else I could say that was any _more_ obvious. _Go __ahead __and __just __say__ "__I __love __you__" __again, __why __don__'__t __you?_

"Okay," said Gaz, following my hand motions with the whisk. She was blushing. I couldn't feel the ring on her left hand at all, but I told myself it might have just been because she wouldn't wear it when sleeping. Realizing I was still holding onto her, I eased up a little. "Hey!" Gaz exclaimed. "Don't let go! I mean... I don't think I'd be able to keep doing this right if you did."

That was good enough for me. I let our fingers intertwine and went about helping her still. Cautiously, I leaned in a little more, hit with the want to draw her in close and tell her again that I loved her. But there were some things I wanted to keep hidden from her, too. I couldn't tell her... not until I understood it completely myself. Not until I was positive I could overcome it. So, for that moment, just being close to her like that was okay. Then again...

"Zim?"

"Hmm?"

"You're... staying, right?" asked Gaz cautiously, trembling a bit. "Even though..?"

"I'm staying," I told her, "as long as I can. We still have to fight, no matter what we know. And I... have to..."

Unable to control myself any longer, I let go of Gaz's hands, causing her to let go of what she was holding as well, and I pulled her back away from the stove, hugging her close to me from behind. "Zim, what—" she began, but stopped herself mid-sentence.

"Mm..." I muttered, breathing in the soft, sweet scent of her hair, "it's nothing."

Gaz seemed to relax a little, allowing herself to lean back against me. My heart was pounding; I'd been waiting for a moment like that for so long I'd lost track of time. Her breaths were a little uneven, but she was for the most part calm, making me feel more and more at home with her. My arm stung a little, but I ignored it.

"Can't be nothing," she said quietly after a brief moment of silence.

Cautiously, I pressed a little closer to her, my words brushing directly into her ear in the softest tone I could manage. "You found it."

"Hmm?"

"...The ring." Gaz was silent after I said that, so I continued talking. "You like it, then?" I guessed, feeling myself smile. "You waited for me?"

Gaz let out a light breath. "Of course I waited," she said, "but why'd you give it to me? I mean I pretty much know, but... why Tavis? Why not..."

"I have to protect you," I whispered, not letting go.

"You don't _have_ to..."

"Yes, I do."

"Why are you saying that?" Now she was on the verge of crying. I had a sinking feeling that I was hurting her, but for some reason a part of me was too selfish to care. I wanted her. I didn't understand why, but I _wanted_ her, all for my own. I _had_ to protect her. If I couldn't love her, nothing would make sense. If anything, I needed to convince _myself_ that what I felt was really love. Trust was one thing, but did I really understand?

"Because..." I began, bowing my head a little and closing my eyes, envisioning what life could be like if everything I wanted was real, "I..."

_"__Because __she__'__s __just __like __her __mother. __Isn__'__t __that __it?__"_

"No!" I found myself shouting, perking up and letting go of Gaz. She yelped a little and rushed to the stove to turn off the burner, then whipped around to face me again. I could barely see her. My vision flashed red for a moment. My hands flew to my head, in a subconscious attempt to keep the PAK subdued.

"Zim, what's wrong?" Gaz asked frantically.

I stumbled backwards until I ran into the far counter. I lost control of myself for a moment, and unintentionally my hands slammed down behind me onto the countertop, sliding down to grip the edge. The PAK wanted control.

"Get out of the room, Gaz," I advised as calmly and evenly as I could without slipping. I could feel myself getting stronger, but the strength was not mine to use. "Find someone... get your brother, maybe..."

"I don't want to talk to Dib!" she snapped. "I just want you to be okay!"

"I don't know if I will be!" I hollered back, an ache surging through my entire body—a heat, a chill, a pang, a surge. Or possibly nothing. "Just—

"Just what?" she demanded, screaming. "Zim, please!"

My vision flashed red again, but instead of taking full control, my PAK made me look on. I didn't even get the luxury of a blackout. "Just a little longer," it made me say, taking control of my vocal chords and speaking through me. My voice sounded hollow and rough, void of emotion and deeper than the lowest minor chord I'd ever heard come out of Lex's piano.

"ZIM, WHAT THE HELL?" Gaz cried out.

"You want to know why I'm cut out to be General?" I heard 'myself' saying.

"ZIM! SHUT UP!" Gaz shouted. I was allowed to watch her run up to me, and was finally shocked back into awareness when she slapped me across the face. The PAK released its grip from my head and my vision was restored to human splendor, but I felt sick.

Suddenly, Gaz's arms were wrapped tightly around me, and what I wanted to be reality sank in further. Stiffly, I regained full control, and set my right arm around her waist. Being more than cautious, I bowed my head, drinking in the lilac scent of her hair, of every sense, every single thing that kept me present, goal-oriented, at least slightly human.

"Thank you," I told her. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Zim, no. I'm sorry my brother—I'm sorry he broke you," Gaz murmured. Was that what she thought? Well, I suppose she was partially right.

"That isn't all it..." I tried. "Look, there's... kind of something about me, I..."

"What's going on in here?" Simultaneously, Gaz and I turned to see who had spoken. Much to my surprise, it was Red, standing casually in the sitting area. Gaz and I exchanged glances, and then she stepped away from me, walking back over to the stove to retrieve the pot and finish making breakfast.

I watched after her, then turned to glare at Red. "Breakfast," I answered in a raw tone. "What're you doing here?"

"I got a signal," he answered. "Well, a call. The computer system here supports it."

"What're you talking about?" I wondered. "A signal from where?"

"It just came in, and I've already told Dib," said Red. "He's gotta talk to you, since we need to kind of speed things up a little now."

"What? Why? Red, where was that signal from?"

Wait. Shit. I knew the answer. My heart skipped and I knew. And the answer could potentially come to nothing. The signal could very well have been a false lead, or, from the sender, a lie. Either way, she had impeccable timing. She always liked to stir things up right in the damned thick of things.

"Who else?" Red grunted, folding his arms in defiance against her. "It's Tak."

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Hey guys~! :3 Whee. I swear, this really is one of my favorite scenes. ^^; Also I love Eggs Benedict, so there's that. (They really are delicious.) Haha, get it? Zim's a good cook, and he was once banished to Foodcourti… a… haha… D: (Apparently it's emoticon day.)

Sorry again for the super late update! I do have a looooot more editing to do than I thought…

Also! Gah, really, seriously, I do apologize for being so wonky with updates and such, but there is a possibility that I'll be taking next week off (from both this fic and my other one) because of Thanksgiving. So! There is a chance that I will see you next **Friday,****November****25****th****,** but if not, I will absolutely see you on **Saturday,****December****3****rd****!**(Gonna be going back to Saturdays for December due to my shift in schedule.) :3

It is super late and I am sleepy, but honestly, honestly, thank you all so much for reading! Hello to all new readers (sorry to be welcoming you on while I'm in such a crazy state of awkward updates and such right now, aaahhh!) (I feel like I'm feeling fic existentialism or something…) and thank you all so, so much for your faves and comments~! They make me so happy~

Have a lovely Thanksgiving, to all of you who celebrate it (and a lovely week to all in general!), and I am going to try really super hard to have an update for you next week!

Much, much love,

~Jizena~

– – –


	11. Outlooks 1: Argument

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader __Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Gaz's Records_

Despite all of the work that went into it, breakfast was eaten quickly and quietly. Whatever the hell was happening to Zim, we didn't discuss any of it, which was, in all honesty, much more painful than the actual watching of him essentially breaking down and losing his mind. I mean, Zim as he had been before—read: as an Invader—had been scheming and irritating at most, but whatever was locked deep within the PAK that I knew, based on what we'd discovered during the Incident, was still somewhere in him... that was terrifying. I'd just witnessed a full-on, real Irken attack. I knew what Irkens were capable of.

I didn't want that of Zim, and I don't think he did either.

Dib didn't join us for breakfast, and neither did the Haynsworths or Charlotte. Victor and Dib's spokeswoman were monitoring the transmission we'd just gotten from Tak, from the 'safety' of another room, so of course Lex was sticking by her father, but that just left me with the awkward silence that came of there being nothing much that any of the four of us who were in the room wanted to talk about. There were things, yes, but they were all one-to-one conversations that could just not happen with others listening in.

All right, mainly, the problem was Red. I'd come to learn just how much of a problem he was, and all too soon, but honestly. He sucked the life out of a room. I understood why he was the Tallest—one just can't help but pay attention to him when he's in a room. Even if you're trying to ignore him, all your energy is focused on the guy, because you want to _make __sure_ he's not bothered by being ignored. Which he usually is, and thus: awkward.

But something else stirred up in Tallest Red that morning, as well. Some part of him he hadn't shown before. It started when Zim left to find Dib in regards to the transmission. He helped me clean up, thanked me for my help, kissed my hair gently and went out of the room before anything major could be addressed.

"You, too," Red snorted at his 'partner,' who had completed our silent circle of four. The Tallest was standing, almost eagerly, out in the common area, stoic and ready to take on whatever Tak was about to bring. Ira, by contrast, was still seated at the counter, and he glanced at me, looking bored to even have to respond to Red at this point.

"What?" Ira said flatly. "I'm still drinking tea."

"I don't care," Red snapped. "Bring the stupid tea, for all I care. Which I don't. Care. At all."

"What are you talking about?"

"Tak's demands included talking to me and you!" Red hollered. "Red and Purple. Now let's go."

Ira's sharp eyes narrowed, and he turned away from Red with a huff, tossing his ponytail as he did. "I'm not interested, if that's how you're going to keep talking to me," he said aloofly. "Honestly, Red. First you tell me to go ahead with everything I wanted to say, and now you're acting as though you want something else."

"I'm not acting anything," Red growled back. "I'm telling you what Tak wants. And I want my Empire back and that includes your cooperation!"

"Wait till I finish my tea."

"NO."

I almost laughed, even though I knew it was wise not to, and especially because after Zim's outburst, I really didn't feel like laughing about anything. But this really was interesting. I'd seen interactions between Red and Purple before, but never Red and Ira. There had been a significant dynamic shift. Like Ira was holding the reins now. Almost. Very close, but not quite. Red wasn't someone who surrendered control. Even if he had to act like a stubborn kid to get it.

"I'll be right there, Red," said Ira, calmly. "I miss my old morning routine. I used to enjoy waking up, you know." He blew gently on the surface of his tea, and took another sip. "Some things can't be replaced right now. My home. My fiancée. So you'll do well to at least give me this."

"Forget your old fucking life, Ira!" Red hollered. "You still belong to the Empire, and _by __the __way,_ you had absolutely no right spilling everything you told Zim last night!"

Now, at last, angered, and probably forgetting that I was even there, Ira slammed down his mug and glared over at Red, but did not move up off of the stool. "Excuse me?" he asked darkly. "Whatever _could_ I have said, Red, that got you so angry?"

"You're a human, and for all intents and purposes, you're still my prisoner, Ira!" Red snapped. "You're not allowed to go off spreading secrets about me."

Ira tilted his head back, let out a stream of laughter, then slapped his hand against the counter, stood, and stormed up to Red. "Oh! This is rich," he exclaimed. "Let's talk about that for a second, shall we? Let's talk about who decided that saying such awful things to Zim was a good idea! If I wasn't under your curse or whatever it is, I'd not have held back in the things I said to him. The poor guy doesn't even know about his—"

"Um..." I cut in, keeping myself safely behind the counter to avoid whatever bloodbath was about to occur. "Sorry, what are you talking about? What did you say to Zim?"

Ira glanced at Red, then folded his arms and said, turning to look at me, "Zim asked us to explain his past a little last night, that's all."

"So what'd you say?"

Ira opened his mouth to speak, but Red grabbed him back. "Don't you dare," he said stiffly.

"Oh, you're impossible," Ira growled. "I have the right to speak out, you know. I'd say I'm a pretty good example of the awful things your Empire can do. Zim's another victim, and Gaz and Dib deserve more than anyone to know exactly what's so flawed about your government and your own egotistic garbage!"

"You... oh, for—dammit, Ira!" Red shouted. I had no idea what was going on, so I just hung back. "What do I have to do to keep you under control?"

"I don't _want_ to be under control!" Ira snapped back. "Especially not yours!" He spun around and threw a punch at Red, who caught Ira's fist before he could strike, which only got the false Tallest angrier. He muttered something in what I assumed was Japanese and was most likely not the most flattering thing ever to say to Red, then wrenched his wrist free. "Don't you think it's high time you let me go?" he then shouted up at Red.

"I did let go of your wrist," Red muttered.

"Oh you—I'm talking about my life, Red!" Ira all but screamed. "You're halfway there, letting people use my name again. Give me back my _life.__" _He pushed past Red, toward the hall that would lead him to where Zim and my brother were.

Red, in a display of much less dignity, stood there seething, and folded his arms as he turned in that direction. "Ira..." he began, stepping again into his almost accusitory father role, "I am warning you, don't—"

"Oh, you are _always_ 'warning' me!" Ira stopped in his tracks and turned slowly to face the Tallest, taking a couple steps back into the room. "If you expect me," he said, fuming at last, "to continue living by your demands, Red, I swear, I..."

Red halted Ira by rushing up to him and grabbing him firmly by the upper part of his arms, showing no intention of letting go. I thought about making a move, but I knew I'd get caught in an awful cross-fire, and really didn't want to invite that on myself. "You're making a scene again," Red growled. "You know what we're up against, and more importantly, you're causing a scene in front of _her!__"_

"Let go of me, Red."

"Not until you tell me you'll keep to your word!"

Ira grit his teeth, his hands clenching into fists as the anger rose up within him, translating into his outer aura. He was absolutely furious. This was the first I'd seen anything other than either stubbornness, pure kindness or utter ambiguity coming from the accidental Tallest, so the current scene was somehow astonishing, even though I was in the dark about the years that had transpired between Ira's abduction and the current day. All I knew, when Ira had still been posing as Tallest Purple in front of me, was that he and Red were night and day—complimentary, yet wildly different at the same time. Odd as it was, though, it was kind of nice to see Ira lashing out. It was possible that he was the only one who could put Red in his place. "I said..." he began, his fists trembling, "let me _go!__"_

With that, he gained enough movement in his right arm to hit Red with an upper jab to the chest, causing him to let go. While Red was still doubled over in shock, Ira, without skipping a single beat, struck his partner, hard, across the face, still with his right fist. Red stumbled to the side a bit, then corrected his balance, wincing as he touched a hand to his cheek. I backed up until I was almost against the wall, not sure of what I was seeing, but knowing I didn't want to leave.

"Ira, what are you doing?" Red wondered, lowering his hand and staring down his supposed partner. "You're going back on your word by—"

"Oh, shut up," Ira barked. "My word, my word... know what? If I haven't gone back on that already, then just throw that out the window, honestly! She knows!" he continued, pointing over at me. "They all know! I... am not... a Tallest, Red! I had duties as a human! Do you even _know_ what kind of a life I had? Something you couldn't possibly fathom, I'll tell you that. Do you know who I am?"

"Ira, you're rambling," Red warned, stepping up to him again.

"Don't you touch me!" Ira shouted, striking Red across the face again once he'd gotten close enough. Ira took in a couple of deep breaths and stepped backward. "Don't you dare touch me," he said, trying to calm down. "I'm not like you, Red. All those years serving the Empire, that was for you, you shit, but I sure as hell didn't enjoy it. Do you really think lives are just a game? You know what? Your entire position is a fucking joke."

That was the first time I had ever heard him speak words of profanity.

"Ira..."

"Stop!" Ira looked over at me, looking a little guilty, then back at Red, letting out his anger again. "Stop calling me by my given name, over and over and over," he cautioned, walking up to the Tallest, prepared to strike again. "I know you don't mean it! You simply disgust me. And all those years of me 'ruling' by your side? God! The only way I could even survive was by insulting your intelligence, or what you _consider_ to be that. Let me say it again: I'm nothing like you!" And here, in the same spot, he struck Red once more, then backhanded him, causing his glasses to fall loose down the ridge of his nose.

Ira snorted and removed Red's glasses, gripping them in one hand. "I really do like the theory Zim came up with," he said, yanking Red down to his level by the collar. "You_are_ blind, you always have been. If your eyes weren't clouded by worthless visions of grandeur, you would have let me go by now. You'd have let me go years ago, wouldn't you?"

"Shut _up_ for a second!" Red demanded. Shocked, Ira froze. "All right," Red admitted. "So I haven't been handling things very well. I understand that. But you are sworn under a contract right now, to serve us until your term expires or until you're pardoned by one higher than myself. Otherwise, I _would_ have let you go because I—" Red stopped in the middle of his own sentence and moaned a bit, closing his eyes and bringing a hand to his forehead, gripping his hair a bit. "I can't..."

"What?" Ira guessed. "Can't see?" Unemotionally, he threw Red to the ground, showing strength I never would have guessed he had.

Red scrambled to sit up, propping himself up with his elbows, and tried to focus his attention on Ira, though he had to squint, then gave up and snapped his eyes shut, shaking his head quickly a couple times.

"Before you speak to me in your condescending manner again," Ira warned, "try... just... _try_ to feel what it's like to be human."

"What?"

"You know, I respect Zim for his decision," Ira went on, calm but strong. "Humanity is a gift. And right now, after years of serving you, I can hardly remember what it really feels like to be human. I'm still cursed right now, so don't you dare give me that shit about you _finally_ being able to go back to being Irken after finishing Tak off. You're still Irken right now and you know it. That's where you're blind, Red, you care only for yourself. Just like all you fucking Irkens! All of you!" I noticed, now, that his eyes were watering. "I wish you knew what it had been like for me, before you stripped me of all that I knew and loved! You'll never understand true respect or compassion! You don't know what it's like, but, _shit,_ Red, I wish you would at least try!"

With that, he tossed Red's glasses down at him and paced over to where I was standing, giving me a low-voiced apology, running his hands through his hair frantically, his mind whirring, his aura confused.

Red took his time getting up, standing after a moment's consideration. He looked over at Ira and sighed, then unfolded and slid on his glasses, taking a second to readjust. "You're wrong," he said at last, walking toward the hallway. Ira slammed his hands down on the counter but said nothing. "I do know what it feels like to respect someone else," Red clarified, causing Ira to wince. "I've only ever respected two people," he said, his usually strong voice wavering. "My Elite Commander, long ago, and... and you."

Ira did not respond.

"Come find us," Red ordered before he could leave the room. "I really will hate you if Tak hangs up due to your absence in this call."

Ira turned in Red's direction, and screamed after him in abrasive Japanese as the Tallest disappeared down the I had no idea at all as to what he said, his anger had definitely channeled through perfectly. Ira turned back toward me after composing himself, trying to dry his eyes in as subtle a way as he could. He leaned over the counter again, lowering his head, resting his forehead in his right hand; his fingers slightly pushed back his bangs. "I hate him..." he said in a quivering whisper. Bringing up his other hand as well, Ira let his tears flow, and he inhaled deeply, trying to stop himself from crying outright. "I hate him," he repeated, sounding weaker and more submissive now.

"Um... hey," I said, trying to provide support. I was really not used to comforting people. It just was never anything that happened for me, so it was foreign to even think about. I liked what Zim would do, how he would hold me and talk to me, and I had no problem with contact when I was around him, but with anyone other than Zim, it felt kind of weird. "Sorry, Ira," I tried. "I don't really know what to say, but, uh..."

"That's all right," said Ira, lifting his head and managing to show me a calm smile. He drew in a deep breath, brushed off the rest of his tears, and forced strength back into his stance and tone. "I'm fine. Red's just... difficult. I'm mostly angry that I swore at him. I never swear at anyone, or about anything..."

"Even in Japanese?" I guessed.

"Yes, even that," Ira grinned.

"I understand, though," I offered. "You were just defending yourself. I don't think Red really knows how to reason very well."

"Oh, that's pretty accurate," Ira agreed. He was silent for a moment, then took a seat again on one of the stools. His eyes seemed to be studying me, looking me up and down—it wasn't the same way Zim looked at me, but there was a kind of admiration there. After a minute, he sighed, then said, "Listen, Gaz... I'd encourage you to speak a little bit with Zim. I'd let you in on things, but I think that there are some truths to him that he would rather reveal to you himself."

"What makes you say that?" I wondered, my heart skipping. "He just recently told me there was stuff about him he didn't want me to know."

"I think he's primarily afraid of how to say it," said Ira. "I think he really adores you, Gaz." He smiled again, then added, "I can't see why anyone wouldn't. You've grown up so well."

I shivered a little at hearing him say that, then joined him on another stool, on that side of the counter, and asked, "How is it that you can say stuff like that?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. It's just weird that you and Professor Haynsworth know so much. That Dad never talked about any of this. _Any_ of this," I admitted.

Ira shook his head. "All this negativity I keep hearing about your father is hard for me to believe," he said. "The man I knew was headstrong, if a bit of an idiot. Victor and your father and I were all of like minds. Well, I didn't buy so much into the supernatural stuff, but I guess I was proven wrong in that respect. Not that I wasn't hiding from it before."

"Huh?"

"Oh, nothing," said Ira, waving it off.

"No," I urged. "Tell me what you meant. I didn't buy the supernatural stuff, either, for a while. Or, well, I knew it was there, I just didn't care."

"I suppose that could be said of me, as well," Ira decided, looking back at his abandoned tea. "I'm from a strange genetic line; that's why I became a doctor. I understood other people's genetics, even if I was so confused about my own."

"How so?"

"It's really not important."

"Yes it is." Even if I didn't entirely know why. I wanted to know. I was sick of secrets. No matter what anyone had to tell me, from now on, I decided, I just plain wanted to hear the truth. The truth or nothing. Nothing stretched, nothing hidden. It was all gearing me up for meeting with my mother, for eventually (as I knew this was the case) seeing Dad again, for finally knowing everything about Zim. I had to build up a truth tolerance, dumb as that may sound. Because the more I became used to being given honest answers, the better I knew I'd be able to handle Zim's situation.

Not to mention my own.

"Well," Ira sighed, "I don't have much time to talk about it right now, but essentially... the eyes and hair aren't a byproduct of being Irken under punishment."

"They're not?"

Ira shook his head. "It's a genetic trait," he answered. "My last name is _purple_ in my native tongue. It's strange, but it's been my family name for a few generations, now. It used to be _Saito._Nice and normal. But there was a mutation in the _y-_chromosome during the 1800s."

"So every male child in your family has purple eyes?" I guessed. "That's not so bad. My mom had purple hair, I've got purple hair."

"And it's lovely," Ira complimented me. "But at least it makes sense given your genetic background."

"What, is there more?"

"Well, yes..."

At that point, Red stormed back into the room, and I knew the conversation had to end. "Are you fucking deaf?" Red shouted at Ira. "Tak's about to hang up because you keep stalling!"

"Oh, my _God,_ Red!" Ira snapped. "I'll be right there."

"You better."

Once Red was gone, Ira patted me on the shoulder and said, "To be continued. But I'll tell you one thing right now."

"What's that?"

"Two things: first of all, _talk __to __Zim,__"_ he instructed. "He's got a lot to tell you, if you listen. And second..." Ira leaned in and kissed my cheek before he could stand and leave. Then, very kindly, while I was still shell-shocked from that, he pet back my hair and said, "You're the closest I was ever able to have to a daughter of my own. Victor is Dib's godfather, Gaz, and I'm yours. Please don't hesitate to come to me if you ever need to." Pressing an index finger to his lips, he let out a little laugh, and added, "Just don't tell Red I'm _spreading __secrets.__"_

With that, he drew in a deep breath and took his leave. I sat there in shock for another brief moment, mulling over his words. Well, on one hand, it was great knowing I had a godfather, and one who wanted to talk to me a hell of a lot more than my own father ever did, but on the other—what the fuck, since when do I have a godfather? When the hell was Dad ever that decent of a person to have had close friends like Ira and Victor?

And where did Mom factor into all of this?

It was horrible... horrible, horrible, horrible, but I almost wished my fourteenth birthday would just hurry up and come. I had a feeling that things would start making more sense once Mom showed herself to me again.

Not that they'd necessarily get better (that was almost too much to ask for), but that they'd at least start making sense.

Not wanting to be singled out—which, in all honesty, Tak had just plain done anyway—I followed Ira to Dib's computer and communications room, where I firmly planted myself outside, intent on listening in as best I could, or else learning everything from Zim immediately afterward. That much was nice. First Lex, now Ira... I had encouragement to keep talking to Zim. Eventually, he and I would be at a good, solid point again. I had to hold onto that. Hold onto what I could, while everything else just stayed jumbled, refusing to be put in place.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Ready for more Ira trivia? XD The _-to_ in _Saito,_ Ira's old family surname, relates to the wisteria... which very commonly has purple blossoms. In the Victorian language of flowers (which is super interesting and slightly insane, just like everything Victorian), the wisteria stands for holding onto love. It is also a symbol of honor and patience. Ira's surname _Murasaki_ is also that of the author of _The Tale of Genji._ Wooooo surname fun! ^^ (I could write about Ira's name all effing day, I swear, and that may or may not have to do with the fact that he also makes an appearance—with some slight alterations—in an original work I've been tossing about in my head for years now...) (Actually, I have so much background on all these guys, and I really, really can't wait to get to more on Membrane... he's coming, I swear!) More notes next chapter! You guys are all awesome~ :3

~Jizena

– – –


	12. Outlooks 2: Courtesy Call

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader __Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Dib's Records_

Getting a personal call from the usurping egomaniacal sociopath herself was both advantageous and annoying. MiMi, Tak's own little sattelite Control Brain, had apparently tracked GIR's signal and managed to hack into Red's laptop, which he then rigged to my mainframe computer so that we could accept the transmission. Her demands—of course she had demands—were that only four of us speak to her. Me, Red, Zim, and 'Purple.'

Ira was furious, and certainly, for some reason, did not want to be in the same room with Red at all, but attended all the same, keeping an air of dignity about him. Ira was not, I realized, a proud man, but he was very much sure of who he was, or was supposed to be. Now that we were 'allowed' to use his real name (I still had to figure out what was up with Red on that one), he was acting much more comfortably human. In the transmission room, however, he managed to copy Red's haughty stance and expression, fully playing the part of the Tallest, as he had been doing for so long.

Zim looked uneasy but more or less assured, and I knew that a lot of that had to do with being around me, after what I'd told him the night before. I'd realized he and Gaz were on breakfast rotation, too, so I'd gone ahead and avoided that, just in case either one of them wanted to destroy me. But Zim was remaining fairly well-composed, which wasn't even surprising me as much now. After that talk, I did start to realize just how sincere he was about wanting to be human. Or, just to change, in general. He'd developed impressively certain morals, and I couldn't not respect him for that.

Honestly, the one who probably held it together the least, once Tak's image appeared on the large screen in the transmission room, was me. Oh, Red was plenty angry, sure, but I think it may have been the fact that she was flanked by Skutch and Skoodge that really got me. Skoodge had killed Nacea, and on Tak's orders to attack. It was safe to say that I was feeling pretty uncomfortable and vindictive.

All three were in human temp form—Tak was seated in a command chair, looking smug; she was dressed in indigo blue, as her hologram once had been. The dress was form-fitting, and appeared to wrap around like a Chinese martial artist's robe. Around her waist was a red and purple belt, strapped into which were a number of knives and Irken pistols, and on her feet were those same old, thrice-buckled heavy black boots. Skutch stood on her right, arms folded, wearing the same red and black 'uniform' he had been during the attack. Skoodge hadn't changed at all, either, and I swear to God that asshole Invader was glaring right at me. Skutch, on the other hand, had his eyes set on Zim.

Tak grinned and snapped her fingers, getting MiMi to rush up to her feet in a black blur. The SIR unit blinked into and then out of her black cat hologram, and focused on the four of us with leering red eyes. "Well, well!" Tak sneered. "Just look at you! However did you enjoy my warning?"

"You call that a warning?" I snapped back.

"Oh, was it not good enough?" Tak feigned pouting. "Or, was it too much?" Without breaking her focus on us, she asked, "Skoodge. How would you rate their performance?"

"Got a long way to go, my Tallest," he answered. That got Red almost cringing, but the true Tallest remained firm.

"As I expected," said Tak. "Now, I do hope you'll know this is merely a courtesy call. I wanted only to... check in on you. To see how you're faring. Let's start with the two of you," she continued, focusing on Red and Ira. "You survived with your human bodies intact."

It was at that moment I noticed the glowing gem around her neck. Possibly because she took the time to touch it directly with her fingertips, taunting Red with its presence. She was gloating, but it was a foolhardy thing to do. Now I knew what it looked like. Now I knew exactly what had given her the power to become the Tallest. Zim's grave expression was all the added assurance I needed that this was indeed the real thing.

Tak had essentially just set herself up as a target. Assuming we'd ever be in the same place. Which, if I had any say in it, we would be, and soon. Once Zim's new army was prepared, we were going to attack. That's all there was to it. That was all we could do.

"Cut the small talk," Red barked. "Just tell us when the hell we can expect you here so I can crush that Cabochon and kick your ass."

As was her general response to anyone who took a stand against her, Tak began to laugh. I could have sworn I saw Skutch roll his eyes at her for that. He definitely had an interesting air about him, that Invader. I could see his motives worn directly outside. He was in a constant state of trying to do better, while at the same time trying to prove that he was. Kind of like Zim used to be, in a way. He was at a much higher level of communication and motives than Zim ever had been as an Invader, though. And he was much more devoted to the Empire, if following Tak was his answer to setting his own bar higher.

It was true that most Irkens really did just follow blindly, I kept on being reminded. _Good__luck,__Dib,_ I thought to myself. _It__'__s__your__job__to__right__that._I glanced over at Red, and couldn't help but think about the odd new respect I had for him. I mean, I was definitely happy that he was taking such a new, active role in the Corporation. But even just how much he cared about his Empire was admirable. Even if his modes of conduct were things I called into question.

"Not so fast, there," Tak said to him, not even acknowledging the fact that he had a name, which Red caught onto and looked ready to strangle someone because of it. "I want to talk to _you,__"_ she grinned at me. "Now, you're an interesting one. I know all about you, you know."

"I'm not going to waste time asking how," I glowered at her, keeping my stance as cold and confident as I could. "I will tell you, though, that I don't care how much you know. I only want you to know that I'm going to take you down."

"Would you put that precious planet of yours at stake?" Tak asked me, taunting me.

"Earth is my first priority. I'm just also prepared to get in there and fix whatever damage you've done."

"Oh, don't point fingers at me," Tak laughed. "Those two are the true culprits!" She pointed harshly at Red and Ira, the latter of whom was doing very well to not show all of his discomforts with the situation. "They destroyed the Elite! I built it back up again. They distracted the Irken Empire with the want for useless gain, whereas I plan to bring my Empire to greater and greater heights!"

"So what's your plan for Earth?" Ira demanded.

"Don't get excited," Tak smirked at him. "You'll learn soon enough. I can assure you it's thousands of times greater than anything the two of you could ever come up with."

"I doubt that," Ira muttered.

"So what's this all about, then, Tak?" Zim spat at her.

"Zim," Tak purred. "Don't you look well and comfortable." Zim simply glared. He didn't break for a second. That was interesting. He could still be horribly set and focused on defeating someone—it just wasn't me or anyone else on Earth anymore. The more he proved himself, too, the more I had to admit (especially after how angry she got at me the night before) that he really was... well, okay, he was a good choice for Gaz simply given a lot of alternatives. I mean, he wasn't who he used to be. I still wanted to see him prove himself as army Commander, but I did essentially trust the guy. And, yes. I'd trust him with human lives. Even my sister's. If not especially.

_That_ was going to be an interesting talk.

The one now, however, was solidifying in me more and more my need to be a leader. Seeing Tak gave me more drive. I had a Corporation to run and lives to defend. I had a girlfriend and a semblance of family. And I had to shield all of that from _this__threat._

"Tak, I'm not interested in any of your insults," Zim said. "I've been going through a lot, lately, and I understand that you hate me and that this is all pretty much a revenge plot on your part."

"Revenge plot?" Tak shrieked. "I'm the Tallest! I have supreme power, and that disgusting planet you're spinning on is going to fall."

"Why? For what purpose?"

"To counteract the Brain's Prophecy," Tak scowled.

"What do you mean?" I wondered. Didn't that have something to do with Miyuki's plan to liberate the Irkens? So Tak was anti-liberation. Anti-free will. That's what I heard.

"You'll learn all in good time."

"Then what the hell is this call about if you're not going to tell me?" I shouted.

"As I told you," said Tak, "this is a courtesy call. Meaning that I am approaching you with the courtesy of giving you the next season during which I plan to attack. In your months, I believe it is September."

"September?" I laughed. "You're giving us until _September_ to get our army up to speed? You realize we might even be able to launch an attack on _you_ by then?"

"I highly doubt that, Dib," she said condescendingly. Skutch echoed her with a slight laugh. "I'm giving you more than enough time to prepare, but more than enough time to amass my own troops. I still have the upper hand. I am the Irken Tallest, and there is nothing you can do about that. In September, your planet will be mine."

"Is there some significance to that," I wondered, "or are you really just mocking me now?"

"September was the month she turned me human," Zim recalled, pulling me to the side. "I don't think anything she does is really random. I think it might _appear_ random, but that's only the approach. Tak's more clever than we're giving her credit for at any turn. I think she has all of her basics plotted out. But this is good. We do have time."

"Fine," I said to him quietly. Then, for Tak, I repeated, louder, stronger, "Fine. September it is. Your army against mine. Empire against Earth, Tak, _bring__it__on._ We'll be ready."

"You're such a child," she laughed.

"You're the only one who thinks so," I bit back.

"Hey," Skutch added. "Zim. Guess what?"

"What?" Zim growled.

"Our fight's not finished, either," said Tak's second-in-command. "Wait till I get my hands on you, Zim. This is gonna be fun."

"You have a strange concept of 'fun,' Skutch,' said Zim, "but we'll finish it."

"Likewise," I muttered at Skoodge. I did not elaborate on why, but if there was one person other than Tak I specifically wanted taken down, it was that squat little Invader, too haughty for his own good.

"Enjoy the last few months of your lives," Tak said, glaring specifically at the Tallest. "And you," she said to Zim. "I've got something really special in mind for you."

"Later, fuckers!" Skutch grinned, saluting, just before MiMi rushed forward to turn off their end of the transmission.

"I am going to _kill __her!__"_ Red erupted, now that the call was over and he didn't have to sit still while Tak talked to anyone but him. "That bitch has gone far enough. I'm getting my fucking Empire back!"

"Yeah, that does suck," Ira mocked him from where he still stood. "Wanting something back so badly. Doesn't it?"

"You shut up," Red growled.

Ira rolled his eyes, but said nothing else.

The four of us came together, at that point, though, and I came to another conclusion. We four were the cornerstones of the attack. I was a little angry, but also relieved, that Gaz hadn't been included in the call, but I'd talk things out with her later. For now, we four had this advantage of knowing when Tak would strike, and that was all the confidence I needed to keep leading the Corporation forward.

"All right," I said. "Red. I think it's best if you and Zim start in on that training today. Ira, you're with me."

"Absolutely," Ira nodded.

"I'll find Tenn," Zim offered, "and we'll get started."

"Great. Anything else you think you'll be needing for the army?"

"Just plenty of numbers," Zim admitted. "As for formations, Red and Tenn can help with that, and I'll get them ready. Don't worry. I'm not backing out."

And with that, we left the room with a seed of a plan. Only to find Gaz standing outside the door, arms folded, eyes dark and narrowed. I may have greeted her, but I was so afraid she'd just plain attack me at that point I couldn't remember if I said a thing or not. "What was so damn important that Tak had to talk to you guys and not me?" she demanded.

"She probably just forgot about you," said Red. Ira punched him in the arm. "What?" said the Tallest. "It's true. She does things like that. She's just a bitch."

"I don't deny that," said Ira, "but—"

"Honestly, you didn't miss much," I told my sister. "She called to, actually, yeah, to pretty much be a bitch, and revealed that she'll be here in September."

"Huh," was Gaz's reaction to that.

Zim stepped forward at that point, and when he was only a few inches away from her, I saw him catch Gaz's hands in his. They exchanged a volley of quieter words, and then, finally, a question I could hear: "Want to come to army training with me?"

"Not an ideal thing to do today," Gaz admitted, "but sure."

When the two of them walked back over to us, her left hand still in his right, Zim drew an object out of his jeans pocket and offered it over to me. "By the way," he said, "here."

"What is this?" I wondered, taking the small paper from him.

"I meant to give it to you a long time ago," Zim admitted. "It's a business card. Back during the Resisty crash, I saved a reporter. I'd feel weird talking to her again myself, but maybe you can use her to help spread the word and save Earth. You're better at that stuff anyway."

"Um... sure," I said, alarmed at his ideas and his honesty. I stared down at the card, finding that it was indeed an official business card of a woman who worked for the biggest local paper we had, one that had a large online following throughout the country, at that. "You realize by giving this to me, and taking on all these duties, you really are saving Earth, too?"

"I'm just glad to help," Zim shrugged, grinning.

Red called for him at that point, and he left with my sister, Tenn and the Tallest to start in on getting the SEC army prepared for whatever blow Tak was going to strike in September. I stared down at the card again, then slipped it into my own pocket. That woman probably could help. I could rally more support, and Charlotte could probably help me with the right things to say on record, and how to present us while still taking into account the fact that most of Earth would still probably not believe an alien invasion story. But if this reporter had been a first-hand victim in the Resisty strike, we had a good lead yet.

Earth would fall under my dead body. We weren't going to give it over that easily. To be honest, I was almost looking forward to it. Secrets that haunted me aside, at least I had this. At least I knew that I'd do some good somewhere. I'd said it as a kid, and I still believed it now. Save Earth. A big order to fill, but one I was more than ready to take on.

Things were certainly about to get interesting.

Especially once Gaz turned fourteen.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Hi everyone! I'm back after a super crazy Thanksgiving break~~ I hope you enjoyed your holiday/couple weeks! :3 So this week's update is pretty much a setup for the insanity that's about to come… we'll be getting back to Miyuki, here, pretty soon, and the Corporation will start gearing up for the fight against Tak! Whee~ (I do still adore Tak, even if she is a bitch.) (*cough*)

Also… oh my gosh. Guys… oh my gosh. I got such incredible reviews/comments from you guys this week. I've been so nervous to respond to them individually, but I promise I will get to them all this weekend! I love hearing all these awesome, encouraging words… honestly, this is awesome… ^^;;;; I can't even… thank you guys so much. So, so much. :3

So much fun ahead! Thank you all so much for sticking with me! I'm glad to be back after that little hiatus (it was much needed, though, and I have a better sense of where I want this story to go from here—I'm doing much less editing and much more re-writing, but it's going to be great, I promise). And I will see you all again next **Saturday, ****December ****10****th****!**

Much love,

~Jizena

– – –


	13. Mandylion 1: Identity

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Gaz's Records_

It pissed me off that Tak hadn't included me in her little 'courtesy call.' Yes, maybe it bothered me a little too much, but the fact that she'd passed over me—and what fucking Red had said about it afterward—just proved that she did not take me seriously. She thought only the guys were worth her time? Fine. Fine. I'd just prove her wrong.

I talked to Lex a little about my unease with Tak's insufferable attitude, and when I'd finished fuming, my roommate responded, "You know, the more I hear, the more I'm almost looking forward to finally facing down this Tak person."

"Ugh, you shouldn't," I grumbled. "She sucks."

Lex laughed, and when I glared at her, wondering why, she said, "I'm not sure if you're aware how funny you can be sometimes, Gaz. I hope you let Zim see that side of you."

That got me thinking. I was skipping around all over the place with what kind of filters I put on myself. I'd tailor the way I acted around my brother based on what I wanted to get out of him, or if I was just angry at him, as the case currently was; I'd loosened up around people like Lex, her father, and Ira, because they made me feel comfortable. Zim made me feel comfortable, too, but in a different way. Obviously, he'd been the first one to really learn anything about me, such as the fact that I a) knew what insecurities were and b) had a hell of a lot of them. He knew, and he made me feel better, that was all.

And the next few weeks that went by were, for lack of a better word, pretty fun. Fun in a very weird way, given the nature of everyone's activities... but still fun. Tak had given us until September, and it wasn't yet spring, so we had a pretty damn good amount of time before she'd make her triumphant re-appearance. Dib was pulling his oddly-styled hair out, so to speak, wondering what the fucking significance of that month meant, while I was pretty convinced that there was no significance, and Tak was just choosing things at random to confuse us. Then again, during the Incident, the key to the program that had first turned my brother's eyes red had been his birthdate. So the month of September, the month signifying the Incident, probably did hold something to it. It hadn't been five years, though. This would be four, which made me fear that perhaps there was still another year of this war to go, even after whatever it was she'd bring down on us.

But, significance to the date or no, we started drilling like crazy. Due to the severe amount of snow we started getting, times had to be divided between who could use the training center and _dojo_, and when. It would sometimes come down to Red, Tenn and Zim drilling basics in the main training area, while Ira kept my brother on his toes with his sword in the _dojo_. Lex kept up her crossbow training with her father, but every once in a while would sit in on Dib's sessions, and I'd see them go off and talk and kiss afterward, locked together in something the likes of which I was still just kind of wondering about.

Opportunities to keep close to Zim arose, though, starting with a suggestion that Ira had at breakfast one morning, when my godfather and I were on rotation together. Talk about being able to get close to someone. Ira really did treat me like a daughter, or, how I'd imagine a father should treat a daughter, anyway. The way Victor Haynsworth treated Lex. I liked it so much, too, that I'd forget about that man named Membrane and just listen to Ira Murasaki's wisdom and advice. He taught me everything, from how not to burn eggs (I'm that bad at cooking, yes, I _burn __eggs)_ to practicing general patience with everything. How not to be afraid to smile or cry. "Emotions, Gaz," he told me, that morning we were on rotation, "are fragile and brutal things, but they should be accepted and respected. Everything you feel is just a part of being human." He shook his head, smiling sadly, as he wrapped his long fingers around his freshly steeped mug of tea, and continued, "I've come to learn just how much of a gift being human really is. Your friend Zim is fighting very hard to belong here, you know..."

"I know," I said, pouring a little cream on my own breakfast tea. "I respect him for that and I support him and all. It's not that I don't get it, it's just that I don't—_get __it._ Like you were saying. Emotions. What the big deal is."

"Oh, I'd say it's quite a big deal," said Ira, hiding his sharp eyes from me, as he'd started to do, out of embarrassment for the fact that they weren't entirely his, for the fact that they kept him Irken. "Without comprehension of emotion, one is essentially admitting a lack of feeling. And from there, I'd say an individual without feeling is no better than someone like Tak. I know you understand, Gaz, but I also know how confusing things can be."

That was too cryptic for me, that early in the morning, so I shrugged and changed the subject. "How's it going, training Dib?" I asked.

Ira smiled, and shrugged, the longer part of his hair swishing against his back as he did, like a small duster on a delicate surface. "He's improving, but my critique is always the same. He needs to not lose focus. Losing focus would mean losing himself. Which, I'm afraid, is probably what happened to your father." We both fell silent after that, until, after looking me over with mild concern, Ira suggested, "I'd like to work with all three of you."

"All three of who?" I wondered. "Me, Dib and Dad? Good luck getting him here."

"No, no," Ira laughed. "You, your brother, and Zim. With your individual blades. I'm sorry, that was an awkward transition."

"Oh, uh... that'd be good, I guess," I admitted. "But me and Zim don't use swords."

"And _I,__"_ Ira corrected me with a grin.

"Whatever."

"In any case, the type of blade doesn't matter," said Ira. "It's about form. And, let's face it, Zim and Dib could both use a taller sparring partner."

It all came together pretty well, too, I have to admit. It became clear within the first couple of shared sessions that Ira greatly enjoyed playing the role of tutor, no matter the setting. He'd make a great professor himself, someday. Or father. But for now, he was our blades expert. While it was true that he excelled especially in working with a single blade, he was quite skilled with two, and he drilled me and Zim constantly on form.

Zim was a natural, when it came to working with weapons, though Ira observed that his stance seemed more suited to wielding a single blade. Zim refused any offers of working with one of the swords from the late General Brakem's collection, however, insisting instead that he work exclusively with his odd, thin-bladed (and expandable, at that) _saidraken,_ gifts, he admitted, from an enigmatic figure that had been following him for quite some time.

The Mandylion, he called her. "I don't know what she is," he admitted, "or why she has any interest in me, but she's keeping an eye out for me, which is both helpful but unsettling. I mean, her help comes without price. She just shows up, tells me cryptic things, and then leaves. It's weird."

"When'd she start following you?" I wondered. We were taking a mid-session break, sitting together against the back wall of the _dojo_ and splitting a box of buttery crackers we'd brought along as a snack to give us plenty of (albeit crappily supplied) carbohydrate energy for sparring.

"Right before I became human again," Zim told me.

"And she's not Irken?"

"I honestly can't tell."

"Huh."

That was about the extent of that conversation, before Ira called Zim back over to work out a new technique with Dib as his opponent. Ira wasn't kidding when he said that both of them needed a taller sparring partner. He was just too short for them. Ira and I were around the same height, but even so, I had a hard time fighting against him, even when he demanded that I let go of the fact that I had such high respect for him. It was weird; sometimes Lex or Tenn got called in, and I'd work out new moves against them—and Tenn and Tak were around the same height, if I was remembering correctly, so she was a great partner, especially since she had so much more experience under her belt—and it was still easier for me to spar with them than with Ira.

Zim kept a cautious eye on me around Ira. He didn't say it outright, but I got the feeling that he was jealous of how close we'd gotten, and how fast. I confronted him about that only once, and Zim turned a deaf ear to my insistence that Ira was more like the father I felt I'd never had than someone I was actually romantically interested in (which I just plain couldn't be, knowing that he had, at one point, had a fiancée, who, as far as I knew, he was still in love with). Oh, well. He probably just couldn't differentiate things like that. But his protectiveness did endear me to him.

A lot of what he did ended up endearing me to him, really. I kept that ring on, almost all the time, and was glad that whatever conversation Red and Ira had had the night Zim had learned about my Irken background—or, more importantly, whatever conversation he'd had with Dib—hadn't had too much of a (visible) negative effect on him. If anything, Zim seemed more resilient. He'd kiss me and congratulate me on jobs well done; he'd brush back my hair when it got all messed up from practice, and comment on how he liked the scent of my shampoo. Little things. Little things that made me feel stronger.

Even when he wasn't around. The more Zim was required for army duties, the less I saw of him in technique training with Ira. Eventually, routine changed again, and Ira and Victor began leading sessions together for me, Dib and Lex, as well as anyone else who wanted archery practice. I didn't use a crossbow or a gun or anything, but once Victor came on as a tutor, I started doing target practice with my daggers. Hurling, I guess I could say. Victor was very good at judging how a person distributed his or her weight, and how one carried objects. From there, he could easily step in and correct a stance to immediately improved results. He helped give me a steady hand, while Ira worked off of that further by pushing me to run faster to retrieve the blade I'd just hurled and turn it back into a close-range weapon.

All the while, Zim became more and more proficient in old Irken Elite battle techniques with Red and Tenn. His stances became more fluid and his accuracy much more deadly. That much seemed to disturb him to a point, but if there was one person he never showed his unease to, it was my brother. He let me in on when he wasn't feeling so great about re-learning Irken techniques he admittedly had once known, and purposefully forgotten, but we were all stepping outside of our comfort zones (such as Lex even having a passing interest in anything but vampires, for example) due to the fact that no amount of training could ever make us too prepared for what was to come.

All through March, and into April, as the snow melted away, so did many of my anxieties and off-puttings. After only a few weeks, I was feeling more than confident in my ability to hold my own—not that I hadn't been before, but this was Tak, as the Tallest, we were talking about that we'd be up against. Dib and I were cycled between being on strained and good terms. Whatever shit we'd come up with to argue about always managed to be pushed aside for the sake of training, but I was still holding a grudge against him for mistrusting Zim. Even now, I could sense that Dib was wary of him, and like a stubborn child I did not want to understand why.

I couldn't understand why anyone could dislike Zim. Another thing that cycled around and around in the weeks leading up to my fourteenth birthday was a jumble of possible roads I kept obsessing over in my head. Watching him work certainly got my mind, age that I was, whirring and reeling. Yes, I enjoyed watching him spar, and yes, I was pretty damn sure that a lot of the way he worked was done to impress me. He'd glance over to make sure I was watching, and sometimes, once the warmer weather hit, go shirtless—just _because._

Not that I minded. I liked watching as much as he liked showing off. Lex was right, he was an absolute idiot. That was fine. Everyone around me was an idiot. Given some people—_Red__—_I'd have to say Zim's brand of idiocy was both tolerable and sweet. Very natural. Very human. He really was trying hard to prove himself. And I knew that there would come a time when I'd have to make a pretty huge decision on exactly how I wanted to accept him, but April wasn't the month for that.

Especially when she showed up.

It was in the middle of a training session. A rare one that involved a demonstration, at that. It started off as a demonstration between Red and Ira, who, despite the ten-inch height difference, were perfectly matched. Red was stronger and more resilient; Ira was faster and smarter. Red was going about the little demonstration fight using an old form of Irken martial arts; one he'd been training Zim in, apparently. Most of the training those two had been going through was in terms of how to fight back against what Tak's army would most likely bring, which meant tailoring Irken form to human ability. The basic stance was with spread legs and bent knees, one arm bent out in front, fingers curled into a half-fist, while the other arm bent close to the side, and that would be the first hand to strike.

When Red struck out, Ira, in anticipation of the move, grabbed his forearm and flipped himself around to kick Red in the back. The Tallest stumbled forward, but quickly regained his footing, crouched down to feign a kick, only to propel himself forward and throw Ira down onto the ground. Ira kneed Red in the ribs, but the Tallest didn't react. "Now, this is the point," Red said, forcing Ira to roll over onto his stomach so that he could pin his arms behind his back, "where you'd break back one or both arms and take out the PAK. Got it?"

"What if the PAK's got the self-destruct activated?" Tenn wondered.

"Then you run like hell."

"Yeah, okay," Dib sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, "and how do we know if it's activated?"

"You'll hear it ticking," said Red, as if Dib should have known that.

"Ugh," Ira groaned, "thank God the machine you forced on me doesn't have that feature. That's barbaric."

Red snorted. "Who says it doesn't?"

"Do you _want_ me to hate you more than I already do?" Ira shouted, prying his arms out of Red's grip. Before Red could respond, Ira, in a fit of rage, grabbed Red, one hand on his ribs, one on his shoulder, and flipped him easily over his head so that Red hit the ground hard. And thus the fight devolved from professionals giving a demonstration to antagonizing forces working out nearly twelve years of tension.

"All right," said Victor, stepping in before things could get bloody. "I'd say that's a fair place to stop. Ira, I'd suggest we work on a cool-down round, all right? As for you, Red, walk it off."

"Don't tell me what to do, fuckin' know-it-all Professor," Red snarled, picking himself up.

"Yes, I'm deeply moved by your verbal lashings," Victor sighed. "Now, go on."

Red started muttering under his breath, but left. Which, given the next few events of the day, was for the best. Ira thanked his old friend, and Victor did, at that point, let Ira work out the rest of the stress and frustration that always inevitably came out of a session with Red; the ease and beauty with which the two now moved, though, was very interesting and different. Lex told me that it was a style the two had developed along with my father, a year or two after college, and was akin to Brazilian _Capoeira,_ if it had to be labeled.

I wanted to see Dad again pretty badly, now that I was seeing what a force just Victor and Ira could be together. They'd been so pleased to be properly reunited, and, though it had taken a few sessions, I heard them saying that things were 'almost just as they were.' It was amazing that a friendship could last the test of time, given how long Ira had been gone, and how long it had been since Victor and my dad had properly spoken.

"What were they gearing up to fight against?" I asked Lex, since she'd grown up with, oh, her dad actually telling her important things.

"Sadly, I don't know exactly," she admitted. "But if I had to guess, Gaz, honestly, I'd say the Irkens. I mean, look at how well this style compliments the one Red was just using."

"If my mom helped out with this at all," I sighed, "I guess that makes sense."

"Indeed it should," came a voice from the distance.

It only hit me then what day it was. April 27th. The day before my fourteenth birthday.

"Oh, shit," I heard Zim whisper, at the exact same time that very expletive snapped into my head. The demonstration ceased, and Zim made his way over to me and took my hand. Dib, who had been standing beside Lex while I'd been talking to her, gave Zim a slightly warning—but ultimately accepting—glance, then gave me a nod. That, if I was asked to go, I should go. I understood. "What the hell is she doing here?" Zim went on.

"It's my birthday tomorrow," I whispered back.

"So?" he said, squinching his nose up in displeasure. "That shouldn't have anything to do with—"

In the late afternoon sun, the figure approached. I heard Dib mutter something, but couldn't make out the words. I was too fixated on the woman walking toward us. If she was my mother, I was still jealous of the fact that Dib had gotten her completely to himself, and yet she found it fine to appear in front of everyone to claim me. I felt my grip on Zim's hand tighten. I was enjoying the new routine so much, I'd been ignoring the calendar. I didn't want to be taken away for however long my mother, Miyuki, might need me.

I shouldn't have been surprised. Just like Dad, she was shrouded. Dad always wore his white lab coat so that the collar covered his nose and mouth, and his eyes were always somewhere behind those goggles; I never even saw his hands. Of course, Mom would be no different. Her hands in gloves, a robe around her, with a hood and sash covering the features of her face. I thought about the photograph I'd stolen from home, the one that sat on my dresser and showed my mother when she was young, happy, and smiling; how, in that photograph, her lilac hair caught the sun, and her bright emerald eyes made clear just how full of life she was.

I was not the first to speak. Nor was my brother, nor Zim.

"Impossible. Miyuki?" Victor Haynsworth was the one whose voice rang out. The one to step forward, standing protectively in front of all of us. Ira was close behind, but lingered back so that he stood close to me. In fact, everyone seemed to close around me, if even involuntarily. Now that Dib had been through training, they all knew what was expected for me; I didn't know whether to be angry or flattered that they all thought I'd need protecting from my own mother. That I'd need protecting at all.

"No," Zim said firmly. All eyes were on him, now, and I saw his own dark brown eyes, stern and suddenly cold, narrowed on the cloaked woman who I knew could be no one but my mother. "You're not," he went on, "right?"

"I'd know her anywhere, now," said Dib, folding his arms. "Why the cloak, I have no idea—"

"Because she's _fucking __with __me!__"_ Zim shouted, letting go of my hand. He stormed forward and planted himself beside Victor, as if my mother's presence exerted such a pressure that neither of them was capable of taking another step toward her.

"I can hardly understand it with Charles," Victor admonished her, "but even you, Miyuki? Is this all really to do with the abduction? Look who's here!" He gestured back toward Ira. "Would you mind telling me what is going on?"

Oooooh, we were fucked if even he didn't know. I thought Professor Haynsworth knew just about everything. But this was the first time I was really even seeing him freak out. Okay, no, Victor Haynsworth does not _freak __out,_ but he was startled and at a loss for what to say and do.

"Daddy, I thought—" Lex began.

"Wait a moment, dear," he silenced her kindly, holding out one hand, which got her to stop.

"I am here," said my mother, in her gliding Finnish accent, speaking on a slightly lower tone than I recalled her having, possibly for the purpose of hiding an aspect of her true voice, "to train my daughter. Answers will come, but for now, come, dear," she asked me, holding out one hand. A chill went down my spine, and I saw Zim step back so that he stood directly in front of me.

"Yeah," I scoffed, "just like that I'm gonna up and leave. Take your hood off. Prove you're my mom."

"I am asking that you trust me."

"Trust a woman I haven't seen in eleven years. Okay. Sure. I trust _them,__"_ I snapped, gesturing to Zim, and to everyone around me. "I trust people who I've seen _prove __themselves,_ Mom, and ever since you left, it's taken me ten years to even figure out what trust is or how and why I should do it."

"I'm not letting you take her," Zim growled, keeping a firm stance, right there. My heart skipped, then pounded. "Especially not without you confirming a few things for me. Such as why. Why you never told me, this whole time I've been seeing you."

"Zim, you've been meeting with Miyuki?" Dib asked. Oh, shit. He wasn't sounding very trusting himself. Though I didn't know who his current judgment was aimed toward: the speaker or the subject.

"Not that I knew it if I was," he hissed, staring her down (as best one can stare down a person whose eyes cannot be seen. "Because as far as I've ever known, this woman just called herself the Mandylion."

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Heeeeyyyy everyone! ^^ Short post this week but only because next week there's going to be a LOT more, and it just seemed more fitting to group that part all together, and kind of divide up this section of the story.

So yes... Miyuki is the Mandylion... ^^; Didja guess that one? Maybe now she'll start explaining herself. We shall see!

I was travelling for a performance this week and am a bit tired still from it so I apologize if this post/note section seems a bit short, but I promise-promise-promise next week is going to be pretty intense! :3

You guys are all so awesome... thank you so much for reading and for your awesome, awesome comments and reviews! ^^ I'll see you with a nice big update next **Saturday, December 17th!**

Much, much love,

~Jizena

PS: I sketched you guys something because I seriously can't put down all my thanks for recent reviews in words: tumblr (dot) com (slash) ZRewzwD5FB1v

:3

– – –


	14. Mandylion 2: Breadcrumbs

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader __Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Zim's Records_

I did not remember her voice. I could have sworn that I had; or perhaps I was simply angry because I couldn't place it. Her face was set in my memory only thanks to the memorial portraits that had been projected for twenty years past her death on every planet under Irken control. A memorial to her had been constructed on Devastis shortly after her 'death,' but had been destroyed by unknown hands only a day after it had been fully installed.

This was all a long, long time ago. Somewhere that existed in the void of my memory. The way I existed now, with my longing to be human and escape the Irken Empire for good, I could have been perfectly content with leaving that part out. MiMi had tricked us all into believing that she was Miyuki in a computer program, during the Incident—and at that time, I'd been... well, not furious to have forgotten, but disappointed at least.

Yes, I wanted to have confirmed for me the fact that Miyuki was alive. Yes, I wanted plenty of things cleared up so that I could live more easily. However, there were certain details I would honestly not have minded if they stayed untouched.

But there were things I could not remember that my PAK did.

Vividly.

And as soon as the Mandylion had identified herself as Miyuki, that PAK sent a jolt to my brain and plunged me into a blackout, the likes of which I had not experienced since the night Dib had told me that he and Gaz were Miyuki's children.

_"__She__'__s __alive...__"_ my PAK whispered into my mind_._It was a celebration, but an awfully violent one.

_"__Stop,__"_ I tried to reason with it, barely able to feel my attachment to the physical world while surrounded by such oppressive darkness.

_"__She __is __alive,__"_ the PAK repeated. _"__How__—__interesting.__"_

And then came the flashes. They appeared in my mind and sent shocks through my body, playing like an old film and feeling like the sting of frozen wind. Sixty years. That's how much of my life I had reportedly forgotten. What I saw was a tremendous, confusing, and yet somewhat sad representation of all of them, all forced into my head at once as the PAK re-gathered its old data. All memories have to exist somewhere, even when buried and forgotten. Inside me was a tome of a lost life, missed opportunities, and worse grudges than I could ever remember holding before.

I had been the Irken Elite Commander. That much was true, and confirmed. But the position had cost me, to make it that far. And long, long before I had ever been ushered into that position of power, I'd blissfully been no one.

Everything the PAK had been showing me up until now had dealt entirely with my life as Commander. This display, however, focused on my even earlier years, as a recluse. As an Original running from the confines of a rigidly structured life. I had cast myself out and taught myself how to survive, having escaped from standard schooling at merely ten years old—I now was somewhere around one hundred eighty-five, in Irken years—and run off to create my own life, and my own rules.

Along the way, I had met her. An Irken far older than I was, but of a like mind nonetheless. She was beyond intelligent, and had figured out how to manipulate the system around her so that she could spend her life doing what she enjoyed. That thing, for her, was making weapons.

She stalked the Tavis mines that still lay on the outskirts of computerized Irken society, and would slip into the crowds to take a small share of the day's collection as shifts were rigidly being switched out. An honest person, she always made sure to leave payment somewhere for the workers to find, though she admittedly (later on) wondered if they ever could find the sum of monies she'd hide away on the carts.

Before I even learned her name, she—taller than I was, even by normal standards—invited me into her workshops, which she buried underground. They were dark and intricate, providing a suitable space for her to live and work, tiled black for the floors and a very dark green for the walls, and stocked floor to ceiling with more manual tools than computers. Those, and the arsenals she created. Her specialties were the ancient Irken blades of the _draken_ and _redon_ types, though she sold and traded just about anything. Over time, she taught me how to construct below the surface of a planet, no matter how dry or how fertile. How to read the geographic signatures and morph the land around the required room, rather than be invasive the other way around.

She was terribly self-sufficient, and it eventually came to the point at which I asked her if she was an Original. She only looked at me, blinked her emerald green eyes once, and responded, in an untraceable accent, _"__Yes, __I __am.__"_

This was all I got out of her for a very long time. But I was content. I helped her construct weapons, in the meantime. I learned how to respect the materials I was working with, how to fashion hilts for blades and triggers for revolvers, and how carve Irken symbols into various forms of metal with a laser pen. She never, ever, though, let me actually work with Tavis. I was allowed to look at her finished work, but that was all.

Until the day she said, _"__I __think __I __trust __you.__"_

_ "What does that mean?" I asked her, looking up from the workbench at which I was stationed. I, now only around fifteen but at the only height I ever thought that I could reach, had been working for quite some time on the sheath for one of her latest blade works; small, but elaborate, the nearly-finished product lay on the matted black bench that stretched out ten feet to either side of me, and was littered with tools and schematics. "Trust?"_

_ "It means I want to learn your name and tell you mine, so long as you never tell the Elite or any other form of government what I am doing."_

_ "This is illegal?" I wondered._

_ "No," she said, "but if they learned about my operations, they might insist that I change my modes of production."_

_ "Oh."_

_ "My name is Miyuki."_

I gave her my name as well, even though, after that time, we rarely referred to each other by name. We only associated with each other, so we never really needed to differentiate either of us from anyone else.

The flashes skipped, then, to around five years later, when Miyuki began opening up to me about the further uses of Tavis she had come across. She must have told me more about the Talismans at that time, but my PAK only focused on one. On the Mirror. The Mirror entrusted to her by powers greater than either of us. She told me that she did not know why she now had ownership of it, but I got the sense, now, that she'd always known precisely what it could do, why, and how it came to find its way to her.

_"__It __shows __you __what __you __really __are,__" __she __told __me __when __I __saw __it __for __the __first __time.__ "__It__'__s __more __effective __on __Originals, __because __each __of __us __has __something __characteristically __unique __to __us __and __us __alone.__"_

_ "I know I'm Original," I said... my voice sounded less brash than I would have expected it to be, "but I don't know what I can do. My ability is... I don't know what it is."_

_ Miyuki grinned and held out the Mirror. "Well, maybe this can show you?"_

In the flash, I did not see the reflection I'd seen on that day, decades ago, but the me in the memory was shocked beyond belief, after a glance in the Mirror.

_"__It __must __be __broken,__"_ _I __muttered. __Miyuki __tried __to __stop __me, __but __I __walked __away. __Though __I __enjoyed __her __presence __more __than __anything, __I __wouldn__'__t __believe __my __reflection. __For __the __first __time __ever, __I __was __angry __at __Miyuki._

_ Until that day, we'd been close, very close. I felt a strong sense of companionship whenever I was with her, and only her. She was the only one who understood me, since she was the only other Original I knew at that point in time._

_The next day, as I was preparing to give my apology for my previous actions, my PAK received an urgent piece of news. The Tallest had been found dead. Miyuki had risen to the position. I was alone._

– – –

_ "ZIM!"_

I snapped out of it when I heard Gaz screaming my name.

_"__WHY __WOULD __YOU __LIE __TO __ME?__"_ I hollered. Unintentionally, I utterly ignored Gaz's concern, heard and felt and wanted those words shooting out of my mouth as I then lunged at the cloaked Miyuki. Part of my action was conscious, but it was driven, as well, by my PAK. That damned PAK had many things unresolved whirring inside of it. Inside of me. I had no idea why I would be reacting in such a way, but I knew that the longer truths were revealed to me, the more I would wind up knowing.

"I did not lie to you," said Miyuki. There it was, that same accent, that very same voice, that had come from the Irken in my memory. How had she become the Tallest?

And furthermore, what had I done—what could I have possibly done—to become her Elite Commander after that?

Things were falling into place, little by little, though. She knew what kinds of blades to give me, most likely based on some preference I'd come by while under her employ, making weapons. She had skirted around the truths of the Mirror. It seemed no secret that every single thing that had happened in my life, now, could all be traced back to that one day I had just been shown in the flash.

Whatever I had seen in the Mirror had to have contributed to the reason I wanted to erase myself after being blamed for her death. Not the actions leading up to the 'death,' not the 'death' itself, but that reflection. Whatever it had been, I'd hated it at the time I'd first seen it. As Commander, then, had I been running from it, or had I since accepted what it was and started working toward it?

That was one answer I wondered if the PAK would ever give me. Or if that was the secret I was going to keep from myself forever.

"I have been telling you truths," Miyuki went on. "I told you that you once knew me well. This is fact. I have been helping you on your journey. How, then, have I been lying to you?"

"I personally would not call it lying," I heard Victor say. The Professor walked up behind me and set a hand on my shoulder in a consoling way, getting me to move aside. I did just that and instantly found Gaz. I apologized to her in my mind for ignoring her, but she did not take the hand I offered her. She could only glare at the enigmatic figure her mother had become.

I wondered what Miyuki was in Gaz's memory. Her mother's words, I recalled, were the words that had given me hope during the Incident: _"__Anyone __who __has __ever __loved __has __earned __a __soul.__"_

That had been my creed, ever since. Even knowing that they were Miyuki's words, words of a Tallest, words of someone I had admired, idolized, and sought to be considered equal to.

Shit.

How much of that was love? How much, in the past, in that life I could barely even call mine, had I—

"You were always vague, as I recall," Victor continued, standing his ground against Miyuki. "No, what you've been doing cannot be classified as lying, from what I'm gathering and from what I read from your own husband these past several years, but however you look at your actions, Miyuki, I would deem them unfair."

Said a man who had also been withholding secrets, but at the moment he was kind of my hero for coming forward with that. Let the people who can speak more eloquently do the talking, I figured. If possible, I should shut the hell up, no matter how pissed I felt.

I did want to hear the Professor's take on the situation, though. I'd seen him quarrel with Professor Membrane. I'd seen him go stern and silent, upon finally hearing truths of the abduction situation from Ira. He was one of the most level-headed people on Corporation grounds, and probably the most sound within the group he and Gaz's parents used to run in, so I felt like if anyone was fit to attempt talking sense to Miyuki, he'd be more likely to succeed than most of the rest of us.

Miyuki did not say anything to him, possibly reading the fact that he had more to say, and not bothering to cut him off for reasons I was sure made sense only to her. "You disappeared," said the Professor. "How long ago was that, now? Eleven years?"

"Eleven years exactly," Ira confirmed from several feet behind him. "Gaz's birthday."

"So, as long as you're here," Victor went on, "perhaps you'd be so kind as to tell us why you've been keeping so much from everyone?"

There was an awful pause, during which none of us dared speak. I bit down, forcing myself to avoid the next flash I felt coming on—that PAK was _insistent_ on me blacking out that day, but after that first round, I managed to fight back. Finally, the silence was broken, but by nothing that could be considered even remotely reassuring. "I left letters and instructions," said Miyuki. That said, she walked up to where I stood with Gaz; every step taken sent her robe fluttering out behind her on what became a terribly cold breeze. "Now I am here to train my daughter." Taking Gaz's hands, and sending a very visible shiver down her spine in the process, Miyuki, the tone of her voice unchanging, said, "Come with me, so that you can know the truth of what you are."

"Yeah, I kind of already know," Gaz snapped. "Let go of me."

Miyuki shook her hooded head. "There are things you still do not understand. This is the way I planned things, you see—"

"This doesn't make any sense." Every last one of us turned toward the man who had spoken then.

Ira. I was intrigued as to what he could possibly say, and Gaz looked at him pleadingly, to say something that could possibly get Miyuki to say something that sounded even slightly convincing. If there was one thing that Ira had learned by acting the part of an Irken Tallest, it was poise. No human I had ever met, not even Professor Haynsworth, had poise quite like Ira. Even at only 5'6", he stood tall and commanding—a man made entirely of morals strong enough to weigh out over the unfortunate hand he had been dealt.

Miyuki did stop to give him some of her attention, and Ira continued. "From what I have been hearing, Miyuki," he said, "everything went terribly awry after the Irkens took me. Now I have a question for you. Did you know that that would happen?"

"I did not," said Miyuki. No nonsense. Straightforward. But, oddly enough, not unfeeling. The way she'd always been. There had always been something—compassionate?—about her.

Ira narrowed his sharp, Irken-affected eyes, and demanded, "Then in that case, was it a kink in your 'plan?' Were you thrown from the abduction? The Miyuki that I knew was not a woman who would give up easily, but she was someone who always took bad news hard. I don't want to believe that a setback would ever be strong enough to make you abandon your family."

"You left with no certainties," Victor added.

"I left hints toward my return," Miyuki said, as if that were enough. Not for Victor Haynsworth.

"Trails of breadcrumbs," said Victor, angrily, "are unfair, you realize. Especially to your own children. Would you like to hear about how Charles has been handling all of this?"

Miyuki paused for a second, but then shook her head and began walking, leading Gaz along with her as if she were still a little girl.

"Miyuki, _get __back __here,__"_ Dib demanded, speaking at last.

"It is not my place to speak with anyone but my daughter today!" Miyuki said harshly.

Every one of us shut up, mostly from the shock of her outburst. Probably realizing that she had won, she began walking, and Gaz, after fighting against her mother for a moment, cupped her free hand over her mouth and relented. Seeing that gesture of such pain, however, I knew I couldn't stay silent. Even if Miyuki wouldn't listen, I had to say something.

"Why are you running, Miyuki?" I asked her. And instantly questioned whether those were actually my own words... or if they had come from that bitter, repressed part of me that I still could not bring myself to up and rise against completely.

Nothing.

"Look at me and tell me at least one thing," I demanded.

Still. Nothing.

_"__Look __at __me!__"_ I shouted after her. Miyuki didn't even give me the satisfaction of pausing. "Miyuki, get back here!" Nothing. So, this time, I tore off after them. She wasn't just going to take Gaz for a week _because._ She wasn't just going to walk away from me and say nothing _because._ There was a lot I needed to know about Miyuki, a lot that would unlock things I didn't know about myself. I just plain needed answers, dammit, and Miyuki, as the Mandylion, had never given any to me. She'd pointed me in the right direction, but had never even had the courtesy to come back to tell me I was right.

Getting ahead of them, I planted myself right down in front of them and, furious, grabbed Miyuki by the front of her cloak. "Zim!" Gaz yelped, and even Miyuki stumbled back in surprise.

"Why aren't you looking at me?" I demanded of the woman I had supposedly killed decades ago. No response. "Why won't you look at me, Miyuki?" I shouted. "Why this secrecy? Why not tell me who you were from the start? Why help me become human at all if you're just going to ignore me, huh? Tell me or I'll take that damn hood off myse—"

Miyuki blinked out of my grip, and reappeared inches behind me. "You would only be taking a step backward by knowing," she said, in that unfathomable tone. I whirled back, this time full of the intent to just strike her, but she quickly stopped my hand, clenching her gloved fingers around my fist, and by no means giving me a single glimpse of her face. "I can undertake only one task at a time."

"Well, that's a really shitty way of running your own life!" I hollered.

As the Mandylion, she had offered to help me earn my soul, and I knew, because of her, that I was halfway there. As Miyuki, she had already taken Dib for a week of training in Irken abilities, and now she was taking Gaz. I was sure that, in her mind, she thought that she was helping. But now I remembered how she had operated, a long time ago.

Just as Victor Haynsworth had said, Miyuki—as Tallest and even before—was vague. My guess was that she was so intelligent and living so deeply within her own thoughts that she had a difficult time judging what was best for others. Nobody could sway her thoughts but Miyuki herself, which just got me wondering like crazy how exactly her relationship with Professor Membrane had ever, _ever_ worked.

Well. Add that to the list of questions.

Just when I thought that there was nothing any of us could do to sway Miyuki this time around, something pretty much unthinkable happened, if only due to the fact that the woman who called herself the Mandylion let herself be swayed by a valid argument. "Miyuki," Dib's voice rang out over everything. He wasn't yelling. He didn't even project his anger. He simply spoke sternly, showing that he was so far beyond taking any bullshit by this point that he was not going to back down. "Stop."

And she did. For some strange, unexplainable reason, she did. Then again, nothing that Miyuki ever did could really be explained. All I felt that I could presently do was watch and hope that whatever Dib was going to say would let Miyuki see reason and let Gaz stay, since my head and heart were still catching up after the whirlwind of flashes from my past. It was weird. My PAK forced memories into my brain, straight into my mind, but it still felt something like watching clips from a movie. My body didn't remember the actions it had taken; my hands certainly would have no skill now to even begin creating weapons the way they apparently once had; I could not put myself into the action of those flashes. And as long as there was a disconnect between body and mind, I was afraid that I'd be at the mercy of that PAK, and that something against my will could very well start happening to me...

But that wasn't as important right now as focusing on what Dib was going to try against his mother. So I shook myself into perfect, present consciousness, and looked on.

"Okay," Dib said, completely holding his own while more or less staring Miyuki down, "I'm going to go ahead and say it. I'm sick of this. I'm really, really sick of this. All this yelling. All this secrecy. None of this really needs to be this hard, Miyuki. Does it? You and Dad, I swear to God, you complicate things for the sole sake of complicating things. So you know what? You know what, Miyuki? Here's my solution.

"Fuck you," he said strongly, to his own mother. _"__Fuck_ you, and _fuck_ Dad, and _fuck_ anyone else that interrupts things that are _working._ I'm running this Corporation now, and I run it on a system, and it's a system that _works._ I don't have any kind of 'one thing at a time' agenda, and I'm sure as hell not hiding my face from the world like Dad does, or apparently now you do, too. If something doesn't go right, change it. That's what I'm trying to do. I've taken your shit so far, but here's what's going to happen now.

"I'm leading this Corporation, Zim's leading my army, and we _need __Gaz._ Long and short of it. You're not taking her, because that's just going to put us behind, and Tak's planned attack may seem a long way away now, but it'll be here before we know it. I'm not risking losing my sister to your clockwork agenda. You want Irken liberation, Miyuki? Great job being a computer in support of it."

"You would dare—" Miyuki began, turning to face him.

"Act out against you? News flash, I'm a teenager, and teenagers do that with their parents," Dib mocked her. "Deal."

"Your sister must be—"

"Yeah. I'm gonna train her," he decided. "She doesn't need your weird old dimension. She doesn't need your cryptic bullshit. She needs to work. We all need to work. And focus. If you want to be a computer, Miyuki, consider the fact that maybe you're malfunctioning. But if you want to be a _mom,_ you're welcome to stay. Otherwise, please stop interfering with the way this counter-Invasion needs to run."

The only sound was the rush of wind. I glanced around at the others' reactions—at Ira and Victor, who stood stunned and proud of Dib's proclamation, but still disenfranchised with Miyuki's continued ambiguity; at Miyuki herself, unfathomable to read... yet slightly bent in stance, as if Dib's words really had reached her; at Gaz, whose eyes widened when Miyuki let go of her, and finally at Dib and Lex, both of whom were staring down the woman who would not show her eyes. Lex showed Miyuki the pity that Dib was too angry to presently convey, and Dib himself stood by his words unwaveringly. This was his last word against Miyuki.

I was quite certain that she would tell him that he was wrong, regardless, or that she would leave with Gaz and without a word. But instead, that mysterious woman said, "I see that my work is already done. If that is indeed your choice."

"It is."

"Then I will take my leave until I am needed again."

Dib let out a harsh sigh. "Miyuki, it doesn't have to be that way," he insisted. "You and Dad—all you do is run. You just run away. You don't _have__to__run,_ Miyuki. Why the hell is it so necessary? You know, maybe if you stayed, you and Dad could get this place running even better, if you reconcile! Ever think of that? Ever think of sticking around and talking to him?"

"Or even just us," Victor offered.

"I know I have a _lot_ of questions for you," Ira muttered, probably not wanting Miyuki to hear his discontent.

"I'm sure Charles would come around if you were involved in—" Victor began.

"Quiet," Miyuki demanded.

"What?" I wondered. Gaz situated herself just as close to me as she possibly could. I forgave her for not wanting to be close to me after my blackout, and any confusion or anger I'd felt from that was replaced by how glad I was that she was putting her trust in me now. I knew that I probably had to protect her from myself... it just felt a little wrong that I had a want to protect her from her mother, as well. Though I didn't think Miyuki was a threat, I thought that she was—inconsistent. Very inconsistent. How she could speak so strongly to me about what I needed to do to earn a soul while at the same time spouting out words that made little sense when it came down to what exactly she wanted of her children... I don't know, it was just beyond me. "You're silencing everyone now? What do you expect?" I asked her. "None of us really knows who or what you are."

"You cannot know," said Miyuki, almost sadly. "Only one person knows."

"Right, _Dad._ Am I right?" Dib guessed. Miyuki did not answer. "So go fucking talk to him! Twenty minutes back into town, Miyuki, _go!__"_

"You do not understand!" Miyuki shouted, clenching her gloved hands to her heart. Bowing her head, then, she extended her right hand, pointed straight at me, and said, "Anyone who has ever loved has earned a soul, provided that all other modes and fragments of life, pain and loss are understood first."

"Who writes these rules down?" I said angrily, holding Gaz back. "You?"

"If only I did," Miyuki lamented, dropping her hands at her sides. "Then I would not be so certain that a soul, once earned, can be lost as well."

And with that, she surrendered any of the power she had appeared with that day, and was gone like a memory on the wind.

– – –

The rest of the day was alarmingly quiet. Miyuki was the only thing on anyone's minds, but none of us spoke of her. None of us brought up the issue to Red, either, since we were sure he'd probably just get everyone yelling and riled up again. Eventually, when Victor and Ira set off to discuss Miyuki's trail of breadcrumbs and her odd ways with Charlotte and the Trujillos, Gaz and I found ourselves in the large common area of headquarters, sitting on the sofa across from Dib and Lex, where she sat in the armchair behind him, as he'd claimed only the hassock for himself.

Lex wrapped her arms around her boyfriend from behind and rested her head on his, somehow avoiding the mess that came of the way he styled his hair, and I was struck by their intimacy—all right, yes, I was a little jealous that they were becoming so open, and I still had no idea if calling Gaz my 'girlfriend' ever again was even in the cards at this point.

"Well, place your bets," Lex said, in regards to what we could expect now.

"Yeah, no kidding," Dib said, rolling his eyes in return. Letting out a pent-up breath, he set his hands over Lex's arms and continued, "None of us has any idea how Miyuki operates or why. At least she let you stay," he added, nodding to Gaz.

"I almost feel bad, though," Gaz admitted, picking at a hangnail on her right thumb. She chewed her bottom lip and said, "Mom's not a bad person, I don't think, but I remember her being weird. What the hell did I know about weird when I was three, though?"

"Can we just have the general consensus be that we're kind of fucked if we don't find at least _something_ out?" Dib muttered.

"Agreed," I said.

Dib continued as if I hadn't spoken. "I mean, I'm all for trying to dig up more on Miyuki. With all that spare time I have," he added sarcastically.

"You realize that there is only one person who can shed any light on this," said Lex, breaking the rest of the silence. Dib and Gaz exchanged a glance, then nodded a little. "Do you think he'd consider talking now?"

"Not if I approach him directly," Dib sighed. He fished into his jeans pocket, though, and withdrew the business card that I had given him and looked it over, his eyes darting back and forth as he sorted through all of his possible options. "It's going to be a roundabout way of doing things, and with all this extra training we're going to be doing, time is going to be kind of clipped and difficult, but I think this is the best route."

"What're you thinking?" Gaz asked her brother.

"Interviews," Dib sighed. He stood, then, and offered his hands to Lex. As he drew his girlfriend up to standing with him, Dib flashed the business card in our direction and said, "I'm going to have a word with this reporter. Thanks for the lead, Zim. I'll start things off slow with her, and do some investigating of my own... you know, see if she has anything on Dad."

"I get it," said Gaz. "And then after a while..."

"Yeah. See if he'd come in to make a statement... or, better, see if he'd do a joint article with me. It's stupid," Dib said, "but it's worth a shot."

"And if it doesn't work?" Lex wondered.

"Then we fucking beat Dad up and drag him here, I guess," Dib shrugged.

"Can't we just do that now?" Gaz asked.

"I'd rather that not be option A," Dib admitted, giving his sister a glare. "To be honest, I'd kind of like it if I could start doing something that might actually make Dad like me, or at least treat me like a person."

"Awww," Gaz fake-lamented. "Fine. But really," she added more seriously, "I think that it's a good idea."

"And a good approach," I added. "You interviewing alone until your dad agrees?"

"I'd rather not take chances having anyone else talk, like, y'know _Tallest __Red,_ or Ira, who's been missing for eleven years. Maybe Victor, but definitely Charlotte," Dib decided. "At least as someone who can go on record for things I can't really answer."

"Best to go with Charlotte, then," Lex suggested. "She's a better improviser than my father."

"Got my day planned, then," Dib sighed.

Lex then began ushering her boyfriend out of the room, so nothing else was discussed. I sighed and sat back on the couch, wondering if the universe would ever feel like it had some sense of order.

I'd seen a chunk of my past that day, and learned a couple of flooring things about Miyuki in the process. Remembering what she had done for work prior to becoming the Tallest made a few things fit into place: she was an inventor. Hadn't she been the one to create the Time Warp machine? Not only that, but the prototype, at least, for the machine Tak had originally used to turn me human. If Miyuki had had access to the Cabochon the entire time...

She hadn't faked her death, had she? She hadn't _purposefully __framed __me,_ had she? Without consciously peering into more of what my PAK remembered, I wouldn't know. I almost didn't want to. I had a feeling that a lot of the truth of whatever had happened that day died with Lard Nar, as well. He'd known. Probably more than I had even at the time. I wanted to believe that Miyuki was far above framing anyone, let alone someone she had trusted, when, to my knowledge, Irkens knew nothing of trust.

Miyuki, I had also learned, was an Original, like me. And I knew neither of our abilities as such. Maybe that was information that, if I hadn't learned by then, I could pound out of someone like Skutch during the battle that would inevitably happen in September. Miyuki was Original, and the holder of the three most powerful items known to the Control Brains that presided over everything in the Irken Empire. The Mirror, the Cabochon and—

Wait.

When Skutch and I had been working together, he'd told me that the only thing he had known about the third was that it was a weapon. It was possible, then, that Miyuki had created the third on her own. That would explain her need to work almost exclusively in Tavis. She'd been trying to create something—but for what purpose?

She had to have had a true agenda. She was just unable, for whatever reason, to spill it to anyone else.

Her being an inventor, too, made her marriage to Professor Membrane make a little more sense to me. But from all I was gathering, she was even more eccentric than he was, and honestly, that really was saying something. It also seemed clear, given the last thing Miyuki had said, that she'd undergone the same process she as the Mandylion had been helping me along with.

She'd earned her soul for him.

And then forced herself to leave.

Before I could begin giving myself headaches with wondering why, I felt Gaz's soft right hand brush over my left, and a second later, our palms touched and fingers laced together. Letting out a forlorn breath, Gaz leaned against my left shoulder, then inched closer and pressed her face into the crook of my neck. "You all right?" I asked her. She nodded into me. "If you're nodding, you're lying."

"Okay, so I'm not fully _all __right,__"_ said Gaz, "you caught me. I'm just really overwhelmed."

"Yeah?" I shifted, wrapping my left arm around her and taking her hand in my right.

"Mmhmm." She didn't move.

"Hey, Zim?"

"Hmm?"

"Since I actually get to be here to celebrate it, I want something for my birthday," she requested.

I felt a surge in my chest, and pressed my lips to her forehead in a secure kiss. I moved my left hand through her hair and breathed in the scent of lilacs, then felt her move against me so that the next words I spoke were directly into her ear: "What's that?" I wondered.

Gaz sat back just a little, just enough to let her eyes drift up to meet mine, then requested honestly, in a soft tone she sounded slightly afraid of using, "Something I can rely on."

That much, I thought, I could do. At least for that one day. Yes, more flashes would come, yes, inevitably, Miyuki would be back at some point to stir things up even more... no, there was no real sense of security in anything, since now that more investigation was going on among all of us (whether consciously or unconsciously). But I could give her everything I could, as best I could, with all that I had now.

I gave her no vocal answer, but she did not seem to mind. My fingertips alive to the most thrilling extent of my sense of touch, I grabbed hold of her hair and kneaded my left hand through. Moving slowly and simply, I brushed her lips with a light kiss, then, drinking in the rare warmth and affection she was giving me that afternoon, I nudged my nose against the angle of her slender jaw, getting her to tilt her chin up.

If there was something I could give her that she could rely on, it was the simple truth that I loved her. That I had fallen in love with her, and, no matter how many setbacks came my way, no matter how much my past tried to intervene, no matter how slowly we'd go back to taking things, no matter what Tak or Miyuki or anyone else tried, I'd protect that girl with my life. Miyuki seemed convinced that souls could be taken away once earned. Well, I was halfway to one right now, and I wasn't going to give it up, even if there'd still be threats to it afterward.

I was going to earn this. No matter what.

We pressed close and fell into a kiss together; I held onto her, taking the action as deep as I dared to go. Gaz's hands trembled for a moment, until after a few seconds, she grabbed hold of the front of my shirt, pulling me in closer, and thus letting my right hand go free. I brushed the fingers of that hand under her chin, then, keeping her head tilted at just the right, wonderful, beautiful angle.

I didn't know if this would lead anywhere, immediately. I didn't care. I loved how present Gaz kept things. It kept life interesting. She could be riled and heated and uninterested at one moment, and clinging to me out of the want for something real the next. It was sad, seeing how Miyuki had acted so cold earlier that day. Of course, I'd never known it either, but as someone who had grown up human, Gaz should have had the right to the family that she'd started out with. Her parents were both so ashamed of their actions that they hid themselves from the world.

Maybe that was it, now. Maybe what I could promise to Gaz, what I could give her as something to rely on, was the promise that I would never, ever let her become like that. I'd never let her be so embarrassed of who she was that she had to create a mask, an illusion to hide behind.

Because she was beautiful, outside and in. She deserved the life she wanted, even if she was having a hard time figuring out what exactly that was. I could help her.

...That was the final component, wasn't it?

Once I beat Fear—whatever that was, I was not quite ready to know—I'd have only Love to prove in order to earn my soul. And since it was for someone else... of course, that made perfect sense. It would come from whatever we taught each other.

And this was the start. This was the true start of it all.

On a slight pause, Gaz tightened her grip, caught her breath, and begged, "Don't let go."

"Don't worry," I assured her, kissing the corner of her eye. "I've got you."

"Of yourself, either," she added. "Zim, don't—"

I kissed her again before she could worry herself too much. I had no intention of letting go now.

_Bring __it __on,_ I challenged the PAK. _Do __your __worst. __Whatever __you __do, whatever you show me, __I__'__m __stronger._

And I had to keep on believing that. I had to fight while believing that. Even though it took me up on the challenge, fiercely. When Gaz and I fell into another embrace, her fingers brushed my back, where those scars crossed, and a slight jolt hit my mind.

A nameless relationship had started, but so had the war. The battle for Dib and Gaz to seek and discover exactly who their parents were, and what that meant for them as Miyuki's heirs. My own battle—the rush to complete my soul. The fight that we all needed to prepare for against Tak and her odd brand of Elites.

There was one other battle, too, that rang true for everyone. For me, for Gaz and her brother, for Miyuki and Professor Membrane, for Ira and even Red. And that was the battle for consciousness. In the end, it would all come down to who we were; to self worth.

To exactly how, each in our own way, none of us would let go of what really mattered. And that, if nothing else, was going to help us win.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Heeeyyy! ^^ (Sorry, I know I estimated a higher possible post tonight, but that was in an old draft of writing this week's update… what started out as something in three different narrations just ended up sounding better in just Zim's Records… ^^; Ahahaha, editing phase.)

So my goodness gracious, I'm very excited about where this is going. Again, this whole middle part is all pretty much completely different from the original, and it just flows so much better as;dlkjal;dgjh D:

The reporter will be coming back… :3 And don't worry, Membrane IS on the way.  
…Actually tomorrow. IN A WAY. I have a special chapter buffered for tomorrow, which is actually not continuous in the timeline of _IZMS,_ but it's still highly relevant (okay it's a flashback from the huge document I have of Charles, Miyuki, Victor and Ira circa college era and therefore not in Dib, Zim or Gaz's Records) (I'm actually planning on posting at least a few of these sporadically, as they become relevant). And because it's the holidays, it'll be my little bonus gift, since I will not actually be updating on Christmas Eve… ^^; I just didn't want to post it on the same night as this normal update. So… bonus chapter tomorrow!

Guys, you are all so awesome… I love these reviews, and seeing that more and more people are reading and enjoying this story~ ^^ So if you read, thank you, and an early happy holidays to all!

(I do actually have a totally serious question for those of you who may know better than I: could this series possibly get away with a T rating? It _is_ going to get more violent, but lately I've been feeling like it doesn't have to be M… ^^; Any insight to this anyone can provide would be awesome, thank you! ^^)

I will not stay and ramble in these notes, but I will say again that I am _very_ excited to get into what is coming next. I repeat: I love part 3. I'm glad you readers have been enjoying it so far, too~~

It's the holidays so I'm exceptionally gushy, sorry. XD Hope you all have a lovely season, and as reminder, I will see you again for a wee bonus **Tomorrow, ****December ****17****th****!** :3

Much love,

~Jizena~

– – –


	15. Bonus Histories 1: When One Thing Began

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader __Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

So hey everyone, I told you I'd have a bit of a bonus for you guys today! Sorry it's a bit late! ^^ This takes place circa… oh, God, gotta do some head math (I write these things down in six different documents but never make a master one…)… 1983. You guys get a little backstory now, which hasn't yet been laid out in the _Saga:_

For her human years (which I won't go into too much detail about right now), Miyuki was raised in Finland, though she was adopted. At sixteen, she decided to complete high school in the United States, and moved on her own to go to a private school in the Boston, MA area, where she lived in an apartment paid for by her parents as part of her tuition.

Her earliest human memory is from age twelve, when she was adopted. She knew everything of her Irken life, but never spoke of it, even when the Mirror she'd always had found her again…

While touring MIT in Cambridge, Miyuki met a young man named Charles Mansfield, who was hoping to get into the school through scholarships and his inventions, not just grades alone. The two clicked and became friends, but Miyuki was oblivious to the fact that she was slowly falling in love with him. Charles noticed a slight attraction, but was in the midst of attempting to repair things with his current girlfriend, Anita Moreno (who would later become Agent Bloodrose, as we know her).

Miyuki came from an upper-class household with two loving parents, but Charles never had it nearly that good. He grew up on the outskirts of Boston, with only his single mother as family—though as a child, he saw a good deal of her parents—and she was home less and less as he got older, since she needed to work longer hours. Charles rarely liked any of the men she brought home, and would spend most of his afternoons in the school's shop room, and the bulk of his evenings in his basement. Creating things. An inheritance put them in a slightly better place by the time Charles was in high school, but he still knew that he'd need more than grades and need-based scholarships to attend his school of choice. Anita was a supportive girlfriend—though she had cheated on him twice in their three-year relationship, mostly because he was very naïve and too trusting—but by the time he met Miyuki, Charles more or less knew that he and Anita were on their way out.

Sooooo, there's a bunch of backstory! It's going to take Dib and co. a while to learn that stuff, and it's never explicitly stated anywhere in the actual _Saga._ I think I'll do more of these bonus chapters, too, because backstories are totally my thing, I don't know what it is. D: I just love writing backstories (probably one of the reasons part 3 is my favorite).

Anyway, I'll stop ranting here and let you folks get on with the scene. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Miyuki's Records_

The telephone rang unexpectedly at a minute to midnight, piercing through the silence which before was being interrupted only by the occasional turning of the textbook page. I had been studying, presently world history (a fascinating subject), for the past three hours, wanting to make sure that Monday's examinations would hold no surprises for me. I did not care that it was Friday night, or that my friends had decided to go out. Feeling that it was their loss, rather than mine, I stayed inside, reading, doing problems, casting the occasional glance at my MIT acceptance letter before pouring myself a cup of strong green tea. My apartment that night was indeed so quiet that one could hear a pin drop, which would explain my sudden fright upon hearing that loud, chiming telephone.

After nearly burning myself on slightly spilled tea, I rushed, my heart pounding, over to where the telephone was kept on its small pine table. For a moment, my hand remained still on the receiver. I only wanted to answer to two calls that night: one would be my parents, for I always loved talking to them, the other, of course, Charles, since he would probably bring a lighter atmosphere to my otherwise quiet night. That raised the question, though, as to why he would be calling me so late. Of course, there was only one way to find out.

I picked up the receiver after the third ring, and spoke a soft, "Hello?" into the telephone.

"Miyuki..." Charles's voice did not carry its usual tone that night, and that alone made my spirit sink. I'd hoped for one of his usual calls, during which sometimes even he didn't know what he wanted to say. Instead, my dear friend sounded hurt; I was to play therapist that night.

"Charles," I said in return, hoping my voice carried the proper intonations for what he wanted to hear, "what's wrong?" Silence hummed on the other line for a moment, and fear crept up inside me. He never acted this way. "Charles," I repeated, a little more firmly.

"We broke up," he said quickly, almost before I could finish saying his name a second time. "Anita... broke up with me... about an hour ago."

"Oh," was all I could think of to say. Trying not to let out a selfish, pent-up sigh of relief, I slumped down into the chair nearest the telephone, twirling the cord with my right index finger, holding the receiver to my ear with my left hand. "I-I am sorry to hear that," I added, knowing how much fun the two always seemed to be having together. Anita was always smiling whenever she was with Charles, but had always, so I had noticed, been wary of me, as though I existed only to encroach upon her happiness. "Really, Charles, I don't know what to say... I'm sorry..."

Silence again, then Charles's voice once more, if possible even more quiet than the first few things he'd said. "She'd been cheating on me again." My heart skipped. I heard Charles taking in a long hiss of breath. "Left me for Rico..." he muttered, as though only speaking to himself now. Silence again. I didn't know whether or not I was to say anything in this situation, so I kept quiet for a minute or two, then opened my mouth to speak, not knowing what would come out. Charles interrupted my empty thought by adding, "Plus, she knew."

"Knew what?" I wondered. Silence once again. I was, inexplicably, getting angry. "Charles, she knew _what?__"_ I demanded.

The silence didn't last long this time. When it ended, Charles was asking me, "What are you doing right now?"

This time, I did sigh, and stopped playing with the telephone cord. "Studying."

"It's Friday night."

"Actually, now, it's Saturday morning. Why do you want to know?"

I could barely get annoyed with the silence this time before it ended again when Charles said, "I want to see you."

"Go to bed, Charles, you're not in a stable state of mind," I advised. "Call me tomorrow."

"Miyuki, listen to me, I need to talk to you."

"We are talking."

"Not like this!" There was urgency in his voice, mixed in with anger, loneliness, sorrow, and complete, utter longing. Those, and confusion. Such a tangle of emotion, just in one simple phrase, was enough to throw me, for a moment, off-guard. I did not know why he was so intent upon talking to me. I did not know why it had to be me, or why it had to be now. Before I could even begin to work any of that out in my head, Charles added, more evenly, "I'm coming over."

"What? No! Listen to yourself!" I reprimanded, my heart fluttering an unnatural rhythm against my chest. "Charles, it's late, you're upset, and you live in Cambridge! If you want to meet, we can have lunch tomorrow or something, but please, just think about what you are saying!"

"I have thought about it," he replied firmly, "and I'm coming over." He sighed, agitated most likely with himself. "Look, I'm not upset about Anita. At all. We were on our way out anyway, and... Miyuki, just let me come talk to you. Please."

This time, the silence was my own. I really had been rendered speechless. Finally, not knowing what else to say, and, yes, longing to see Charles as well (since I hadn't for nearly two weeks), I replied, "All right."

I could almost hear Charles smiling. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"No, Charles, don't—" I began. He'd hung up. I sighed and slumped further into the chair. "Rush..." I said, completing my sentence.

I placed the receiver down onto the cradle, hanging up as well. I remained still in that chair for a moment, not knowing what to do or think, then cast a glance over at my desk. Absently, I stood, walking over to turn off the desk lamp, then retrieved the mug of tea I'd been drinking, took a sip, and wandered into the kitchen, where I placed the mug down into the sink.

Suddenly, I was rushing, cleaning up the apartment as best I could, making my bed, fluffing the pillows on the sofa, putting away all of my stray books (but leaving the study desk alone) and, most importantly, taking the Mirror down from my wall and stowing it in the secret compartment of my closet. I wondered if I should vacuum, but I knew I hadn't the time. I glared at the mug in the sink; it was the only dirty dish there, so I quickly dumped out the tea, cleaned the mug, and was just putting it away when the buzzer from the call box nearly made me drop it.

I put the mug away in its cupboard quietly, then, my heart pounding, I walked with padded steps over to the door, fixing my hair with each step. The buzzer came again, much more frantically—three rapid sounds. With baited breath, I pressed the button on my call box, causing the noise to stop, and said, rather shakily, "Yes?"

"Miyuki, it's me." Charles's voice again. He sounded out of breath, as though he'd sprinted to Boston from Cambridge. Given his inventions, that wasn't too far-fetched.

"Hello," I found myself saying, then hit my head against the wall for saying something so stupid. I groaned.

"Hi," he said in a breathless reply. "Can you call me up? I really... I just have to see you. Right now."

Without saying another word, for I'd probably have said something else silly, I opened the front door for him, and I felt as if I'd barely pulled away from the call box before I heard the pounding on my door. My heart leapt again, and my hand turned the knob almost on its own.

And there was Charles, on the other side of the door, looking quite a sight. He was leaning against the doorframe, catching his breath. His usually neat, short black hair was an awful mess that just flew helter-skelter in all directions, indubitably windswept; he was dressed incredibly casually, wearing a black windbreaker over a dark green shirt, which was tucked slightly into his tight blue jeans. He wasn't wearing any of his invented boots, that night, either... just a pair of normal running shoes.

His light brown eyes fell upon me, and I stepped back to invite him in. Charles stepped in silently, closing the door behind him. When the latch fell into place, I asked, "What's the matter? Would you like to come sit down? I could—"

My sentence was never finished, for Charles had silenced me by firmly pressing his lips to mine. His strong hands grasped my shoulders and he pulled me close, holding me to him as he kissed me. After a long intake of breath, Charles pulled back, then quickly kissed me again, before I could ask him why. In some ways, I did not want to ask. I didn't want to know what had brought this on, or how long he had been holding such fervor inside, and yet another part of me ached to ask that question _why._ It was true, I'd felt closer to Charles than I'd ever felt to anyone, even Zim. Years, and years, and years ago, back when he and I had been true partners, before… before he'd done himself in.

I'd never kissed anyone before, and I'd always wondered, when looking on (whether it was Charles and Anita or any other couple I passed on the streets or in the school hallways), just what it was like, and why it was so popular a thing to do. Because of this feeling of awe and estrangement, I had always told myself that I would use my first kiss as a study. A study to figure out just what made the action so popular and wonderful, and why couples seemed to be more connected whenever locked in a kiss. Charles gave me no time to think about study. I couldn't even begin to make my mind work scientifically, so shocked was I at the sudden display of affection. I found that I was enjoying it, though. Though I couldn't describe to myself just what I was feeling and why, I liked it.

The moment was ruined when my mind did click back into its normal setting. Actually, it was merely one thought, but that alone was enough to spoil everything: _I__'__m __enjoying __this __moment __with __Charles... __would __I, __under __different __circumstances, __have __ever __kissed __Zim?_

I pulled back when I felt like I was betraying my old friend. I hadn't seen him in years, nor did I know how he was faring now. I'd done nothing in the realm of checking in with the Irken Empire at all in the past five years, since, truth to tell, I did not want any harm to come to Earth, should the Irkens find out that I was still alive. Zim, too, would be affected if I contacted them. I would probably hurt him, just as I felt I was, in some way, hurting him now.

As soon as I pulled away, firmly pressing my palms against Charles's chest to tell him to stop, tears rushed to my eyes. I did not deserve to have him; I was selfish to think that I wanted to continue, while I was hurting my past inside. Charles hadn't quite been shaken out of it, though, but he got the message when I bowed my head, not letting him any closer to me.

"Miyuki, I—" he began as I nervously ended my contact with him, pulling my hands back in, wringing them to avoid other movements. He paused for a second, then let go of my shoulders when he noticed that I was close to crying. "Ah," he gasped, stepping back, "I'm sorry!" I closed my eyes so I wouldn't actually cry, since I didn't want to, but Charles interpreted the action in the wrong way; I could tell just from his voice, and the buzzing, confused readings I was getting from his energetic mind. "I'm sorry," he apologized again. Then he groaned; I could feel him backing away, and he pounded a fist against the wall. When I opened my eyes to look at him again, though my vision was cloudy, I saw he had his back turned to me... well, he was at a three-quarter angle, at least... and he was looking quite confused himself, gripping his bangs tightly with one hand, drilling the heel of that hand into his forehead as a way of beating himself up mentally. "God, I told myself not to do that..." he muttered, "I knew I'd hurt you, or... something. Shit..."

Wrapping my arms around myself, I forced myself to speak. "Charles..." I began, my voice cracking a bit.

He sighed harshly and turned to look at me again. He'd gone red; it looked like he was too embarrassed to speak to me, since he was feeling so guilty. I felt rather strange looking up at him, too. Charles seemed different now... changed within the last couple of minutes. This wasn't the person I was used to talking to, but somebody new: someone he'd been wanting to be, but had never shown me while he was with Anita. She'd suppressed him, and now she'd let him go.

"I'm sorry," Charles apologized yet again. "I don't know what came over me. Well, actually, yeah, I do, but I'm sorry it did. I just..."

"Do you want to talk about it?" I interrupted, nodding back toward the study.

Charles glanced behind him at the door, then down at me again, biting his lower lip, weighing his current options. "Look, you were right," he said. "I'm not thinking clearly; I should go—"

"No," I said firmly. That got him to listen. I'd never said 'no' to him about anything before, but now, hopefully, it could lead to something positive. "We need to talk about it. You told me you wanted to talk, and now here you are. I'll make you some tea."

"Miyuki—"

"Go into the study, Charles, and I'll be in in a moment with tea!" I practically shouted. I stepped back, trying to straighten but feeling too insecure. "Just... go sit down. Okay?"

Charles was silent for a moment, then sighed again, more lightly this time, and said, "All right."

"Good," I said, not knowing what else to say at the moment, then stepped backwards into the kitchen, watching with slight interest as Charles went about the menial task of sliding off his shoes and hanging his light coat, un-tucking the rest of his shirt in the process. As he was heading toward the study, he smiled a bit when he saw that I'd been watching him, causing blood to rush to my cheeks as I hurriedly went about preparing the tea.

Using just a little borrowed energy from the air, I made the pot of water boil faster, then quickly poured two cups of strong Darjeeling, filled the creamer, and brought everything into the study on my glass platter, which I set down on the drawing table next to which Charles was sitting, his left leg crossed loosely over his right. I found myself wondering how a nearly grown man could possibly find that position (in such tight pants) comfortable, but shook that thought out of my mind as I bent to pour cream into both cups. Just before I could, however, I realized something that I hadn't even thought of while making the tea.

"Oh... you like coffee instead, don't you?" I asked, my voice coming out weak. I hadn't yet raised my head to look at Charles, since I was afraid of what I would begin to think. I didn't want to look him in the eye until I'd calmed myself a little. "You never drink tea. I'll make—"

"Hey," Charles said softly, grasping my hand, still holding the creamer, before I could draw it away, "just because you've never seen me drink it doesn't mean I hate it."

"But still—"

"Miyuki, I'll drink it." I looked up, unintentionally, and when my eyes met his, he smiled. "It's fine," he told me.

I felt myself flush again, and tried to look away. "You can let go of my hand now, Charles," I said quietly.

Charles hesitated, and sank back into his chair when he did let go, though his eyes, behind those thin, black, wire-rimmed glasses said quite clearly: _I__didn__'__t__want__to._I was beginning to feel terribly awkward with the situation, and finished preparing the tea as quickly as I possibly could before drawing back and sitting on the edge of the sofa. It wasn't until I'd sat down that I realized by bending over in the position I'd been in to add cream to the tea, I'd given Charles a clear view of what was under my shirt; upon discovering this, I adjusted my shirt and hugged my arms around me again.

I did not know how I was to approach the situation. It was clear that Charles liked me. Possibly in a romantic way. And it was true that I liked him as well, but I'd never given thought to what would happen should we become involved. My mind was whirring and the rest of me couldn't catch up. Here I was, an ex-Tallest, pride of the Irken race, reduced to nothing by adolescent human hormones, struggling to understand who I now was and figure out what I wanted to be. I'd given up on the Irkens, more or less, and I wanted to pursue a new life here, as a scientist, taking in as much of this beautiful planet as I could... but now I was caught in a trap. Was Charles standing between me and what was opaquely a dream of mine, or was he really going to be a part of it all?

"It's good," he said, drawing me out of my thoughts. I looked over at him; I was a nervous wreck. "The tea," he clarified, forcing himself to look away from me when he saw how uncomfortable I was. He set it down after he'd said that, and bent over his knees, holding his head in his hands. "I am so sorry, Miyuki," he said. "I can't even... I can't think straight. I just want to..."

"Make it up to me, or do it again?" I wondered, giving him two possible ways to end that sentence.

Charles groaned. "Both," he confessed.

"Charles, you're my closest friend," I began shakily, not daring to pick up my own tea yet, for fear that I'd drop it, "and I like you. But," I continued when he'd picked his head up, looking almost like a meercat when doing so, "you've just ended a relationship, and one that looked to me like one that really meant something to you."

"I don't know why you'd think that," Charles said rather quickly.

"What? Charles, I don't want to be your pick-up!"

"You aren't! I mean... you wouldn't be!" he refuted, speaking with rapid, firm intonations.

"Well, if you're here like this only hours after breaking up with your girlfriend, I don't know what else to think!" I snapped, raising my voice without realizing. "Charles, I am so confused right now I don't know what you want me to say. I don't know what _I_ want to say! What... what was that, just now?"

"When?"

"When you came in through the door."

"God!" Charles rose angrily, turning his back to me and walking a few paces, sweeping his right hand through his hair, making the mess worse at first but then causing it all to flatten back into its more flattering shape. "I acted without thinking," he said, calming himself a little, pocketing his hands, looking down at the floor. "I didn't ask you for your permission... I don't even know if you feel the same way I do."

"How do you feel?" I wondered. Slow progress was still progress. Perhaps I should have gone into psychology instead, I thought.

"I like you," said Charles straight out. "I really like you, and I—you know what, yes, I'd like to date you. I don't know." His voice was beginning to shake a little. "It's been really hard for me to fight all of this back for so long, and if I'd known Anita was cheating on me sooner I'd have broken things off months ago. We were on our way out when I met you, but once she met you she suddenly wanted us to keep going." So Anita really had been jealous of me. I wondered if I'd ever be able to have a mature conversation with her. "She found out about my feelings for you, and I think that's when she started sneaking around with Rico."

"But you said that was months ago."

"It was!" Charles practically shouted, whirling around to face me again, letting his hands fall loosely at his sides again before clenching them into fists.

"How long have you felt like this?" I asked warily.

"Since about a week after I met you," Charles told me, calming himself a little. I was struck silent, and just stared vacantly up at him, prompting him to go on. The more I knew about Charles's feelings, the more easily, perhaps, I could sort out my own. "Once I got to know you, I just wanted to know more," Charles went on. "I just love talking to you; I started to look forward to our next conversation... that turned into wanting to just see you again. You're so intelligent, and... and funny, and pretty, I... I couldn't help myself."

I dried my eyes and adjusted my position, straightening and resting my hands on my knees. "You think I'm pretty?" I asked, forcing the words not to be whispered.

Charles smiled weakly. "Yes," he said, then grinned, returning to his seat. "What did I say the night I met you, huh?"

"Charles..."

"I said you look like royalty. But it's not just looks, Miyuki, I told you. I like all of you, everything. And I'm sorry if this isn't the path you want to take, but I couldn't live without telling you. I'm sorry I barged in and kissed you like that."

Finally relaxed to the point of semi-normality, I leaned forward to take up my teacup, sipping the contents slowly, savoring the warmth before setting the cup back down onto the platter and sitting upright again. "Well, then," I said, looking over at Charles. "What shall we do about this from here?"

"What do you mean?" he wondered, sounding nervous.

"What do you want from me?" I rephrased. "A quick fuck or something more lasting?"

Charles laughed. "As sure as I am that there are probably thousands of guys out there who'd do anything for a quick fuck with you, I'm not one of them," he said quite confidently. "If you're willing, Miyuki, I want to start something that in my mind should have started a year ago. I like you, and I'm not ashamed of that. I want people to know. But I also want you to be happy, so, it's up to you."

"Up to me what?"

"Whether you'll let me be your boyfriend or not."

"You have no tact," I said, letting myself laugh a little as well.

"Yeah, true," said Charles. We both were silent for a few minutes, and then Charles asked me, "Well?"

Out of curiosity, I wondered, "What would you do if I said no?"

Charles became quite visibly broken-hearted when I said that, and he sank back into his chair, thinking for a second, then answered, "I'd have to apologize again... a lot... and leave. Then I'd just... hope we could still be friends and go from there."

More quietly, I asked, "And if I said yes?"

Charles smiled. "I'd still apologize, but then hopefully I'd get to kiss you again. I'd either stay or go for the night, depending on whatever made you comfortable, but I'd start right out on making sure that no matter what, I'd make you happy. I'd probably want to take you out tomorrow, and the day after that," he added with a grin.

"And what about Anita?" I wondered. "How would you let her know?"

"She'd find out on her own," Charles shrugged. "I wouldn't go right to her to let her know; that would be stupid." So I wasn't pickup, or rebound, or whatever the word was. Charles really did like me, and had for quite some time.

I took a few seconds to have a little more tea, and to ponder the intricacies and the sheer oddity of human relationships, then moved over on the sofa a little, setting my left hand down on the vacant spot next to me. "Sit over here," I requested. Charles looked a little confused, but complied. As soon as he sat, his right hand brushed over my left, and he drew it back quickly, ready to apologize again, but I caught his hand and said, "You didn't want to let go before, did you?"

He went a little red and admitted, "Well, no, but..."

"Then don't."

"What?"

I laughed again and said with conviction, "The answer's yes, Charles."

Immediately, Charles smiled, and his eyes lit up. "Really?"

Shifting to sit with both legs tucked up onto the sofa, I smiled brightly and nodded. "Really," I assured him. "I want to start dating you."

"Even after..." Charles nodded out toward the door. "Because if I'm forcing you, I—"

I rolled my eyes and firmly pressed my right index finger to his lips to stop him from speaking. "No more apologies; I said yes, didn't I?"

Charles let our eyes lock again, and he smiled. "In that case..." he said, leaning in closer as he gently brushed his left hand through my hair. The action felt soothing and sweet, and he followed it by pressing even closer, gracing my cheek with a soft kiss. "May I?" Charles asked me in a whisper, his voice directly at my ear.

"If you're going to be this funny about everything, Charles, then I don't know if I should have gone through with this," I laughed.

"I'll take that as a yes," Charles smiled, nuzzling against me a little before kissing me again.

It was less forceful this time, probably because he had my complete assurance that what he was doing now was right. True, it was a little strange to be having such an experience so soon after Charles had ended his last relationship, but if what he had told me was true (and I knew right away that it was), then I really had nothing to fear.

After a long moment, Charles pulled out of the kiss, his eyes opening at the same slow pace as my own. And then he smiled. It was that same, broad white smile I loved to see, the one that made him who he was. I laughed a little, as did he, and then I threw my arms around him and this time I was the one to prompt the kiss.

I didn't ever want to see that smile fade.

And now that smile was all for me.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Notes:**

…But now, nobody knows if Professor Charles Membrane smiles anymore.

: )

I actually have written the entire 'how Membrane became Membrane' flashback—from Charles' perspective—and want to post it right now sooooo bad, but I caaaaaan't… D: Not till he makes his actual reappearance in the _Saga._ Which is coming, I swear. Very soon. ^^ At that time, once we get into more revelations, there'll be more background on the Miyuki/Charles meeting, too… but for now, I did just want to post this one little vignette from their past. Because at one time, they were 'real' people who didn't hide. And then, things changed. Have I mentioned I love backstories? D: (Eheheh, we also hear a little bit from Miyuki on her thoughts about Zim...)

ALSO! Thank you to RavenFollower13, shade empire, and Surrogate-Reality for your insight on the rating issue… I have such a weak grasp of what's considered 'appropriate' for what rating, since stuff seems to shift around all the time on language, violence and sex… so I think I will stick with the M (I kind of did recently write in that decapitation, and that's nothing yet…), thank you! ^^

TO EVERYONE! Everyone who reads! Thank you. :3 You guys are seriously awesome. For reading, for reviewing, for sticking around through all of these parts (I know that the length of this thing will carry it past a one-year running mark, which is super exciting ^^;)… I get all 'gaaah I love everything' this time of year, so apologies if I'm rambling, but really, I'm so happy I finally got round to posting this story this year, and you've all given this series so much support/kind words/etc., so… many warm holiday thanks. Hope you all have a fantastic holiday season, and I'll definitely be sure to have something up on or before **Saturday, ****December ****31****st****! ****:3**

Much love,

~Jizena

**(Haha, AFTER I posted this, I realized I may have put in a little too much about Miyuki's background, so I deleted some of my notes. If anyone somehow read the old version... you're lucky to have caught those little extra notes! No spoilers, though... ^^)**

(Sooooo many notes on this chapter, sorry guys! ^^ I had to rant out all these backstory notes on characters and reasons eventually, haha… See you with the main storyline again very, very soon!)

– – –


	16. Before the Invasion: Nametags and Souls

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

Song credits follow the chapter.

– – –

_Dib's Records_

When I talked to Charlotte about the notion of going into town for interviews, she was a little surprised, but wholly supportive. "You'd be doing all of us a favor," she admitted, "if you go about it the right way." There was, however one condition: she wanted us to hold the last of the memorial services first. The fight against Tak's Elite had left a significant dent in the Corporation, and due to some of the lost lives being those from overseas, arranging for the travel and all was exhausting and time consuming, not to mention painful for those involved.

In that way, Charlotte had to admit, it was kind of going to be easier now that we knew when Tak was going to strike next. That hurt but hardened me. Obviously, leading an army into battle, one needs to be aware that not everyone in the ranks will survive. At fourteen, that was a lot for me to be thinking about, but I handled it as best I could, and led my Corporation along with the positive attitude that the next time anything happened, we'd be ready.

It took a while, but eventually, we got all of the casualties from the last battle taken care of. There was a graveyard plot on Corporation grounds, where most—General Brakem included—were interred, though a couple men had prearrangements at the cemetery in town. It felt like I'd lost connection almost entirely with the outside world, but I was going to work on that. Getting final rites situated took priority for a while, but once all that was sorted out, I'd have plenty of time to head into town to risk public ridicule by my own father and go to that reporter Zim had tipped me off to for interviews.

Contacting all the families was the hardest. I hated being the one to speak condolences, since I was still reminding myself that Nacea wasn't around anymore as well. I was glad I'd tattooed the Meekrob symbol on my back when I did, since dealing with funeral arrangements made me almost want to forget about Nacea for a while. Besides... I didn't even know how I could possibly get back in contact with the rest of the Meekrob now.

I clung to her memory, though, and enlisted an architect (who just happened to be staying in one of our dormitories) to erect a monument for her, in her likeness. It took a while, and I had to find a huge chunk of time to describe her in full detail to the best of my memory, but eventually it was completed, placed in the middle of the newly expanded cemetery, which was located on the outskirts of the compound, near the forest border that would lead out of town if one walked far enough beyond the gate Agent Cthulhu had built.

Nacea's statue was perfect: arms outstretched, hands cupped forward, looking inviting. She was smiling, the same way I remembered, but her eyes were blank and stone. She wasn't coming back. At least, I thought, she could watch over everyone else who fell, since care was something she always had plenty of to give.

I ended up planting a rosebush at the foot of the statue, near the encryption that bore her name, in beautiful calligraphy. Lex helped me, saying she wished she'd known Nacea better, and admitting that it was hard to see anyone close fall. She admitted to having been slightly jealous of my bond with the Meekrob girl, but was ultimately sad for knowing I'd lost a close friend, and all of us had lost an ally.

I didn't know what to do when I stood at Nacea's memorial for the first time. I had paid my respects to the rest that had fallen as well, but for Nacea, no words seemed to come. Her statue stood on a pedestal, so she was elevated to just a little over my own standing height. I just stood there for a while, then let myself touch a hand to her cheek. I closed my eyes and for a moment all I could see were those last remaining seconds when I'd failed at saving Nacea's life. Now I had no way of knowing where she'd gone. Was Heaven the same for the Meekrob? Did the Meekrob have ghosts? What did this mean for me, as Ambassador to Meekrob, now? My powers would remain, no doubt, but within me she was gone.

Lex had gone back to the main building to ask Charlotte for a watering can, since she'd forgotten one, to tend to the roses. My thoughts were on her for a moment, since she helped keep me strong. She was remaining calm now, though of course she didn't know Nacea as I had, so I tried to figure out what Lex would do or say in such a situation. Nacea needed something said to her, or at least communicated better than just a blank stare. I let my hand fall back to my side, and I took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly as my eyes opened a little on their own. I took in all of my thoughts, fears, regrets and wonders, then looked back up into the eyes of Nacea's statue, and I meditated on what could be said. Unfortunately, I couldn't speak. I just couldn't.

And so I sang.

It scared me at first, when that was all that came out, but it was a song I'd heard Gaz listen to a few times, and one that I'd even heard drifting from Tenn's room. Tenn had known Nacea quite well too; perhaps that was why the song came to my mind. Nonetheless, I, who had sworn off of music for years until Lex had turned my thoughts on it around, was singing.

_"You were born into the world,"_ I began, speak-singing the words a bit as I found my voice, _"a situational Pariah." _I drew in a nervous breath, but continued: _"Spoke in tongues, misunderstood like some unrecognized Messiah._

_ "At the bottom of the sea, I was bathed in your forgiveness—_

_ "Now the world has split in three, leaving me your only witness..._

_ "Is there proof you ever lived? Is there something more transcendent?_

_ "Will these moments die with me? Are they not so independent...?_

_ "Could a child in five hundred years be granted recollection_

_ "Of your smile, of your eyes, through divinest intervention...?"_

My voice was shaking, but I recalled the song as best I could. The words fit the situation perfectly, since I couldn't think of any words of my own. Using the song, I was able to tell Nacea that I was still here, and that I was thinking about her, and that I'd live for her and see her avenged; not only that, but I'd keep her alive in memory, since that was all I could do. I never knew that a song could be so simple yet so therapeutic. I even repeated myself a little, just to make the words even more real. Singing there that day almost made it seem as though Nacea wasn't gone at all.

_"I will shout it from the mountain when your soul is taking flight—_

_ "I will tell your tale in blood, I will keep your flame alight._

_ "And when I breathe away my strength, I'll find you in the white beyond_

_ "And from above we'll make the rain to water mortal dreams at night..."_

When I was finished, I felt a hand on my shoulder; I turned to find that Lex had returned. She'd probably been there for a while. Before I could say a thing, she said, "I'm proud of you."

With nothing else left in me, I hugged her. Lex touched a hand to my back, where I'd imprinted the Meekrob tattoo, then moved her hand and held me tighter. Loss was such a hard thing to deal with, and Miyuki's last words on Gaz's birthday had just made me think even more about that subject of souls. How precious they were, and how much they were missed once they were supposedly gone. Souls that are alike, I realized that day, find each other and hold on. So I held onto the girl who had been providing me such support and such compassion, breathing in the warmth that told me she was not only alive, but the presence in my life that was helping to hold me together. There was something to be learned from everyone I knew.

Even Miyuki. Even my father. Even Zim, and even Red. Everyone.

I looked up at Nacea's statue again, to silently thank her for helping me on the path to the person I now was. And then Lex and I turned our backs; I was able to leave the Meekrob, for now, behind, because I still carried her with me. I carried a bit of what everyone taught me, and I had to keep moving forward. There was so much still to learn, to accomplish... so much I still needed to grow to be.

As the two of us then walked away, however, I looked back once, and prayed we wouldn't be burying anybody else anytime soon, if ever again at all.

I did spend a fair amount of that day thinking about Miyuki's Mirror. I couldn't escape it. I couldn't stop thinking about the meaning behind gained and lost souls, and what I could do to preserve my own, even in the face of being half-Irken. I thought mainly about the reflection I'd seen, of myself, several years from the day. Married, professional, calm, collected. Somehow, that man was me. I was on the path to becoming that person. Part of me already was.

But it was still my job to make sure I turned out all right. And, even more so, to make sure that I continued to run a safe environment for everyone who relied on me. Because, damn it, this planet was my home, and I wasn't going to let a piece of it fall. As awkward a hand as I'd been dealt, I couldn't really complain about my life. Maybe now I was kind of in an odd place, but I was going to take strides to make things better, until the day when all lies and secrets could be brushed away. And the day when the Empire would be an ally, rather than a threat.

– – –

Finally, I made the call.

The reporter worked for one of the local papers, and because she'd been a victim of Resisty attacks herself, she'd had a volume of calls over the past several months, of others wanting to do interviews, other victims wanting to reach out, and, apparently, psychiatrists by the dozens from out of state, all of whom claimed that her stories were fake and that she should be pulled from such a respected serialization and switch to tabloids.

That, her assistant had explained to Charlotte over the phone, had her on constant alert for who actually came to speak to her, but I was given clearance right away. With the reporter's busy schedule, I was penned in on a Saturday, and forced myself to adhere to it and leave things running under Victor and Gaz for the day so that I could take the time to venture out with Charlotte. Lex tagged along as well, after my not-so-subtle hint of: "Shit, I'm nervous."

"You've never done anything like this before, have you?" my girlfriend laughed. This was still at the complex; Lex was going through the vast closet of spare clothes Charlotte had collected for anyone's use, trying to find something 'suitable' for me to wear for the interview.

"I went on TV once back in, like, fourth grade or whatever," I told her, watching her every slight, well-calculated move as she slid hanger after hanger out of her way on a rack of coats. "I was trying to convince the guy on that show _Mysterious Mysteries_ that Zim was an alien."

"And how did that work out for you?"

"He put me in a straightjacket." Oh, right, _that's_ why I didn't care that I'd been removed from the rest of town for so long.

Lex stopped what she was doing and looked over at me with inquiring eyes, then tilted her head back and laughed freely. "I'm sorry!" she said, calming herself down. "I'm sorry, but, Dib, that's... oh, please tell me you can laugh about that now."

"Oh, no, I can," I said, grinning as I walked over to her. I placed my hands on her waist from behind and pulled her in, then kissed her hair and admitted, "Now that I've got someone laughing _with_ me."

My girlfriend let out a musical sigh and gripped my left hand reassuringly. "You haven't had the best luck, have you?" she said in a sweet tone as she continued rifling through the rack of clothes. "You've got so many people on your side now, though, love, you've got nothing to worry about. I don't think you have any more straightjackets in your future."

"Mm, I hope you're right," I admitted, bending to kiss her neck. "Still nervous, though."

"Do you want me to come with you?" she asked.

God, she really was my anchor. She always seemed to know just where to keep me harbored so I wouldn't get too caught up with old worries or concerns, or anything of that sort. She was right. I did have a fair amount of support now. And I hated to be using my name to an advantage, but getting the Membrane name out there in the papers again—this time for something actually important, _Dad—_would hopefully get even the nay-sayers paying attention to what Earth was going to be up against.

"If it's not too much to ask," I said. Laughing, I added, "I'll get you clearance for being my conscience."

"Announcing Dib Membrane, his spokeswoman Charlotte Baudelaire, and his _walking conscience,_ Alexandria Haynsworth," Lex snickered, putting on a zealous announcer's tone for her continuation of my stupid joke. Snapping back to her own teasing tone, she added, "Only if you wear this jacket."

It wasn't like the trench coats I usually liked wearing, but it'd do. If it had the girlfriend stamp of approval, it couldn't be too awful, right? Plus, my own sister was the first to say, "If you go into an interview wearing that stupid trench coat, the reporter will think you're a serial killer." Whatever.

Oddly enough, the strangest part of the day was the fact that we left for town in a car. I hadn't ridden in a damn car in what felt like forever, just because we never needed to around here, and it was an easy walk anywhere. Charlotte didn't want us taking chances anywhere, though, so she insisted on driving us. The windows of the nondescript black vehicle she'd borrowed, apparently from Agent Bloodrose, were tinted, so that nobody could see into the car, which made me realize just that much further how serious it was that I—head of the Swollen Eyeball Corporation—was coming out into the 'real' world to expand on as many details behind Tak's declared war on Earth as I could.

The newspaper office was on the opposite side of town from my dad's lab. At first, I was slightly disappointed, but came to the decision easily enough that it was for the best. At least this first time, I shouldn't be anywhere near my father.

Soon, though. Soon.

Charlotte, wearing a business suit and name tag (I don't know where the hell she got the name tag, since we never wore them on the complex, but I figured if anyone could make one last minute, she could) opened the back door for me and Lex, who was dressed much more professionally than she usually was, in a belted grey dress and with her hair pinned up into a braid that looked a little too complex for the actual length of her hair, but I didn't question it, since she wore it well. Charlotte presented us both with name tags, which Lex and I joked about quietly as we followed behind her into the large white office building. Once the security guard greeted us, nodding with respect once he read those tags, we kind of had to stop joking though. Such was the world I was a part of now, though, I guess. Wear a damn name tag, you're suddenly Someone. Until you become a media image and everyone just knows who you are anyway, right, Dad?

Shit. This was all about him. But, based on what Gaz, Lex, Zim and I constantly talked about when we weren't in training, it kind of had to be. If we were going to get any more sense pounded out of Miyuki, Dad had to be the one to do it. If we were going to understand any more of what Victor and Ira were always being secretive about, Dad had to be the one to talk about it. If I was going to understand exactly what kind of Corporation I'd inherited, all dirty history included—Dad, Dad, _Dad. _Jeez, for all I knew, he may have some kind of key information to help us win the whole damn war.

And this was the first step.

We took the elevator up to the third floor of five, and stepped out into a clean, citrus-scented room full of computers, cubicles, and row upon row of archival cabinets. At the center of what looked like perfectly orchestrated mayhem sat a sleek black desk, perched atop which were four phones with stripes of different colors to differentiate the lines, two large calendars, baskets of incoming and outgoing mail, and the drumming pink nails of an overworked secretary. The young woman herself, who hardly looked older than Gaz, was cradling one of the phones on her shoulder as she spoke into it, and after a second, her right hand stopped drumming in order to pick up a pencil and scribble in an appointment on one of the calendars.

When Charlotte approached, the secretary held up one apologetic index finger before kindly hanging up the phone with a, "We'll be in touch," and glancing up at us. Her eyes looked tired but focused behind her teal glasses, which matched rather well her light purple hair, which was tamed back with a headband and stuffed back into a thick, wild ponytail. She looked familiar, how did I...? "Can I help you?" Wait, wait... I knew her...

"Agent Charlotte Baudelaire, Swollen Eyeball," my spokeswoman announced. "Twelve o'clock."

"Right, of course," said the girl, standing and extending a hand. Charlotte shook her hand and stepped back to announce us, but before another word could be said, the girl stared at me at choked. "Oh," she said, letting her hand fall limp. "Oh, um. Hi."

"Hi," I said skeptically.

"Do you know her?" Lex asked me. She had every right to be giving me an odd look, too, since I'd told her before that I'd had no other girlfriends, but that didn't mean in her head, I guess, that I didn't have a passing _thing_ with anyone. Not this girl, though, hell no. She'd made fun of me enough times in elementary school for me to remember her... at least once I noticed the plate on her desk.

_Zita Collins,_ the plate read. Nametags, I'm telling you. _Interim Secretary._

"We went to school together," I said, extending my hand to be the bigger person in the situation. I couldn't be stubborn and hotheaded here; I was representing the one Corporation that could save the world, after all. "How are you, Zita?"

"I'm... fine," she replied, shaking my hand. "You're, uh, working at the Swollen Eyeball, huh...?"

"I run it," I said smoothly. Zita winced somewhat. Before she could draw her hand back, though, I noticed that her forearm was exposed under the teal silk top she was wearing, and that it had faint scars in groups of three, leading right up to her elbow. "Zita, what's that?" I asked her, staring at the scars.

"It's, uh—" she tried to avoid the question, pulling her arm back. She took one more look at the tag I wore (it read, clipped to my jacket's lapel: _Dib Membrane, Lead Agent, Swollen Eyeball Corporation, Northeast USA)_, then sighed and said, "I got attacked a while ago. By those aliens your Corporation stopped." I didn't make a comment; I waited for what I knew was coming next. "So, uh, I guess... sorry?" she added.

"Why?" I asked.

"You were right." I didn't hear that very often. Especially from such harsh skeptics as she had been. I felt bad for her having been attacked, but did have a sense of pride to finally hear her admit to that. "Sorry I never believed you. I, um, I even really respect what you guys are doing, over there at the Corporation." She smiled a little, then added, "Took an attack to make me realize they're real. Now look at me, I spent my weekends helping these guys dig up more about the attacks."

"Well," I said, "all I can do is thank you for doing your part. You're all right though? After being attacked, I mean."

"I'm better," Zita shrugged. "Getting in the thick of this is helping me deal. Sorry, I don't want to make you guys late for your appointment. You've got one more?"

"Huh?"

"You, your spokeswoman, and..."

"My girlfriend, co-rep of the London branch," I said to introduce Lex.

"Alexandria Haynsworth," Lex said in reference to herself, going for the last handshake at the desk. "It's nice to meet you."

Zita nodded, then picked up one of the phones to buzz into the office of the reporter we'd be meeting with. A few moments later, out she came: a woman of barely thirty, I guessed, short in height but brimming with confidence, with shoulder-length and wildly curly brown hair and a smile that seemed like a part of her was always in thought, if not even sad. Nametags really do tell you a lot about someone: hers showed no first name, only _L. Danvers, Senior Field Reports,_ and a department number. "Hi," she said without introducing herself... but it wasn't out of being unkind, it just seemed that she thought any further introductions were unnecessary, though there was another round of handshakes after that, "thank you all so much for coming in. I'm sorry I've been so busy, but I'm looking forward to getting started."

That out of the way, she led us back into a private office, away from the cubicle jungle and the din of mechanized hums and the trills of telephones. It was a glassed-in office, with a view of the cubicles from the door, and a view out over the city from the paneled window. Ms. Danvers drew the curtains so that we'd be in full solitude, then took a seat in a chair around a narrow coffee table on the right-hand side of the room. On the left, she had her own desk, and a stocked bookshelf over a desk with both a laptop and a desktop computer; the room was divided into chaos and control. The desk was what I'd expect of the frenzied life of a much-sought-after reporter, while the right seemed positively zen: she had an electric kettle off to the side, with a selection of teas, which she offered to each of us (Lex and I each took her up on the offer, while Charlotte opted for water), and chairs were situated around the small table in an orderly way.

Once tea had been poured out, the reporter settled into her chair and took out a tape recorder and a steno pad, then flashed all of us a kind smile. "Sorry again for any delay," she said, "it's just been madness here. Now, I've been dying to ask, but how was it you thought to call me specifically?"

"One of my members had your card," I told her, skipping Zim's name, just in case that would bring any trouble. God, I'd even gone to _defending_ him... but, again, I had to face it: he was a good ally. "I apologize as well that it's taken so long for us to contact you, so thank you for seeing us."

"It's my pleasure. I was hoping he'd contact me, or give my information to someone who would. And he's still working with you?" she guessed.

"Yes, he's actually—" Charlotte gave me a look, "part of our army," I decided on saying, since any titles would demand names as well.

"Oh, that's great to hear!" the reporter said, after giving a slightly relieved sigh. "Even if he, and you if you don't mind my saying, do seem a bit young for this kind of thing."

"We're young," I admitted, "but we know what we're doing."

"And that's why I can't wait to get started, talking to you. Now, do you mind if I record this? Just say the word when you want something to go off-record." I gave her the go-ahead, and she pressed down on her recorder to get things rolling. "So, then, first thing's first: what would you like me to call you? I hope this isn't too forward, but you are Professor Membrane's son, aren't you?"

"Yes," I told her, "I am, but our scientific efforts are pretty vastly different. I don't mind being referred to by my last name, but in here, feel free to call me 'Dib.' That's fine."

"Then, that I will," the reporter smiled. "So, how did you come to start studying the paranormal, Dib?"

The conversation—for it only felt like that—turned into one of the best I'd had with anyone in a long time. Something about the way the woman worded her questions made me feel like I had plenty of freedom to discuss anything, and it certainly didn't feel like an interview at all. It was just a conversation, with someone who was very interested in my work. And I wound up telling her almost everything, too, with Charlotte's guidance and Lex's support. I discussed our present goals, but nothing of our past (having been founded by my dad, that kind of thing), and primarily spoke to her about the Resisty attack. I gave a full explanation of what the attack had been, how we had handled it, and how I knew for a fact that Lard Nar and his group would not pose a threat to Earth anymore.

There was someone else we had to be worried about.

"Now... the Irkens," said Ms. Danvers, still jotting down a quick note about the last thing I'd told her, "tell me about them." Lifting her eyes to look at me again, she added, "What can we expect from them?"

"Here's the thing about Irkens you should really know," I told her. "You can't expect anything. They can and will do whatever they currently feel like doing, as long as it's something for their own gain. Here's the basics, though: the Irkens are part of an Empire, governed by a single ruler, called the Tallest. The army is called the Elite. I'm going to give you four names to watch out for, and then I'll be happy to keep talking to you about this in future interviews, okay?"

"I'm all ears," said the reporter eagerly. It was interesting that I wasn't questioning her. After all, I'd had people fake interest in helping me before, only to, once again, call me crazy. But her intent was real, I could tell. The fading scars on her arms, and Zita's, were proof enough that she wasn't going to expose me as potentially insane. This woman wanted to let the world know, and was risking her own credibility in the news world to do so. Lex and I ended up having plenty of discussions later on about how much we respected her for doing that, too.

"First name to watch out for is MiMi," I said. "She isn't Irken, but an Irken creation. AI. She's the direct link back to the Tallest. Two Elites to watch out for, going under the title of Invader."

"Aptly named," said Ms. Danvers.

"Exactly. Invader Skoodge," I spat out, "and Invader Skutch. Heads of the current Elite. And then the Tallest herself." Ugh. "Tak. If anyone comes to you with any credible mention of these names, please, contact us. Tak recently made a call to my Corporation directly, threatening Invasion in September, so please be on alert for that. People need to know."

And thus, I knew that my spring and summer were pretty much cut out for me.

We concluded the conversation with more talk about how the Corporation was planning on countering, and how interested parties should contact me—well, Charlotte—about screening and recruitment, should anyone want to help, since some information would remain classified within SEC walls.

I thanked Ms. Danvers for the tea on the way out, then asked the question that would get me around to one of my own main points: "We'll be talking again, won't we?"

"Absolutely," she said. "I'll need to work this piece, and don't worry, I'll send it through your spokeswoman before sending it to print, and then I would love to discuss things with you further after that. I'll check in periodically, or one of my assistants will."

"I recognize your secretary, Zita, from when I still went to school around here," I said. "You can field things through her if you want."

Danvers smiled and nodded her understanding. "Anything else for today?" she wondered.

"Actually," I said, "just one thing." Trying not to make my nerves too obvious, I asked, "Have you ever spoken, or have you spoken recently, with my father? Professor Membrane?"

"Recently?" Danvers sighed. "No. But I did manage to get statements out of him about the Resisty attack. He wasn't impressed."

"What'd he say?" I wondered. "If you don't mind my asking."

"He went on about how his reputation was ruined. As a matter of fact, Dib, your father hasn't been active in weeks."

My heart jumped. For a moment, I began to fear for my father. For his safety, maybe sanity, and definitely his life. All I knew was that, at one point in time, my parents had been a normal, healthy couple, and then a crisis of some sort had caused my mother to leave and my father to... go crazy, I guess. I didn't know exactly what had happened to him. Something just jostled his brain.

Maybe Miyuki wasn't the one who'd lost her soul when she'd left.

Maybe Dad was.

He'd certainly lost sight of everything he'd ever stood for. All of his paranormal work meant nothing to him now, or at least, he'd always made such a big fuss about it to appear that way. When not plastered all over the media, he was very reclusive, always resigning himself to the basement lab, never making time for us, for his kids. Dad's world had ended when Miyuki left, and he just couldn't let that go.

Maybe they were both lost.

And now, for the first time, I started to feel bad about that.

I asked the reporter to keep her eyes and ears open for anything she might be able to tell me about my father, then left, keeping things professional until I'd made it back out to the car.

I never, ever thought that I would be a part of the handshake-and-nametags-business-suit world. Now that I was in the thick of it, though, I knew how necessary that kind of thing was. And to think, that I was a part of a _paranormal_ organization like this... no wonder the international reps who had joined on impressed me so much. Those in high positions were there because they were the best. The reporter I'd spoken to, though not officially a part of our world, so to speak, was known in her field, but was still working her way up, because she believed in what she did.

I believed in what I did, too, without a doubt. Others believed in me as well. Now it was really kind of the question of how long it would be until one or the other of my parents finally came forward to reclaim their passion for the same work that I was doing now, at the Corporation they'd worked hard to get on its feet years before.

If that was still even possible.

Ms. Danvers' last words about my dad had gone from shocking to terrifying me, and once we returned to the headquarters building, I grabbed hold of my girlfriend's hand and drew her back into the music room. That room leaked enough sound for me to hear a loud piano or violin, but it was soundproof enough to keep voices contained.

"Dib, what's going on?" Lex wondered, taking my arms and forcing me to look at her. "You went awfully quiet. What's wrong?"

"Lex, this thing about my parents is scaring me!" I admitted, placing my hands on her waist and leaning in so that I could look her right in the eyes. "What the hell is that about Dad not being active? Lex, is there _anything_ you know? _Anything_ your dad might've told you, Lex, please. I just—I don't get it. I don't fucking get it, and it's really starting to get to me."

Lex shook her head and tightened her grip. "Daddy's awfully withdrawn about that subject, too," she lamented. "He kept in contact with your father for a while, but for the past several years, he's just been a mention. He's tried, though. Tried to figure out what went wrong, where your father diverted, but... no, I don't know, I'm sorry. I really don't. I—I mean, he might know, Dib. My father might know, but if he does, he hasn't said a word to me."

"I just don't understand," I said furiously. "Are my parents keeping things _from each other?_ Like, _what?"_

"I don't know. I wish I could help, love, I'm sorry, but I don't know."

I sighed, then pulled Lex in for a tight embrace, which she returned fully. "It's all right," I said, gathering myself. "Sorry. I don't expect you to know. You do help," I added, stroking back her hair. "Just by being here. Stopping me before I go off the deep end. How do you do it?"

"It's easy," she said, "when you know what it is you want to cling onto."

And just like that, she'd settled my nerves for the rest of the day.

– – –

I did realize that I had a lot of good things going for me. Lex and I were working out, and not moving along too fast. At the end of May, we celebrated her birthday (the 21st, so almost a full month after Gaz's; the two lamented that Lex was a day off from being a Taurus like Gaz, which I actually thought was kind of neat, mostly for the fact that it meant Gaz really was making friends), and I convinced Charlotte to drive us into town again so I could take her out to dinner.

I joked, at that point, that because Charlotte would be coming along, Victor should take her on a date the same night, but Lex laughed when I asked her what he'd thought of the suggestion, and she said, "Daddy was flattered that you want him to find someone, but he and Charlotte aren't, um... on the same team."

"Huh? Oh! Wait, _is_ your dad gay?" I wondered.

"No. Charlotte."

"Oh." I felt myself flush after that one. I hadn't wanted to pry, but, okay, confession, I'd been wondering about Victor and Ira, just because of how much the two were constantly spending time together, and how well they worked off of one another. Being away from a friend for eleven years will prompt such a closeness, though, I guessed... plus, now that I thought about it, it had been dwindling down somewhat, now that we were back on track and constantly training to fight off the Elite for good. "Sorry. Please don't tell him I asked that."

"I'm sure he wouldn't be offended," Lex smiled. "Daddy forms close friendships with men but falls in love with women. He's content to be single, anyway."

"And you don't miss your mom?" I asked her. I'd asked her before, usually when feeling nostalgically awkward about my own family situation.

Lex shook her head. "But can we not talk about her today?" she asked. "I just want to have dinner with you."

"Fair enough."

The weirdest part of the evening, too, was that we were recognized. I took her somewhere small, a place Charlotte had suggested due to the fact that it was dimly lit and we could have privacy (of course I ended up paying a little more since it was one of those Oh, You're Someone places) (at least here I didn't have to wear a damn nametag), but the fact was, this was a week after Danvers had printed her article. The article was wonderful, and read just like any other news brief about any war would. And we'd already signed in ten new members, which Charlotte was overjoyed about... unfortunately she was also overworked, since the calls kept coming, so she'd taken on a couple of assistants from the international pool to help her field sign-ups (mostly into _legitimately wanting to help _and _hack not thinking we're serious,_ or whatever her way more professional words for those were).

Our waitress was the first one to notice. I'll go ahead and say it: probably because of my hair. But still, it wasn't in an annoying way. Shocking and flattering, I guess. I'd never really been recognized as Professor Membrane's son before in public. At school, no one had cared, or sometimes even believed me about that. One of Dad's assistants had even once called me and Gaz his 'roommates.' So I was being recognized for who _I_ was. For _my_ work, not his. The waitress got a little flustered, and said that her older brother had just signed on to join the SEC, so I took down his name to make sure I'd get a word in. She made the entire evening pleasant for us, which was nice, and we were able to have a good, fairly quiet dinner. Nice and normal. Even so, I was nervous when, as we were leaving, a couple regular patrons acknowledged us.

"Your palms are sweating," Lex laughed when I walked her back out.

"It's just weird to be recognized," I admitted. "Do you and your dad ever get this back home?"

Lex shrugged. "Oh, my father is, absolutely, but I'm not, so much," she said. "Our branch is a bit better known, though," she went on. "More of just... one other building full of people coming and going to work in London, you know? Not as underground. So not quite as huge to be recognized."

"Oh. That's pretty lucky," I told her.

"Mmhmm. I hope it doesn't get you down, though. You really are doing such great work."

"Thanks," I said, smiling for her. "Now, what else can I do tonight? It's your birthday, after all."

Lex waited until we returned to the complex to answer, and pulled me quietly into my bedroom once we'd stepped inside. She closed the door and pulled me down for a kiss, warm and comforting, and pulled back to confess, "We've been together a few months, Dib. I, um... I'd really like to start being a little more intimate."

...Which was something I should have been expecting, but forgot all about. We'd kind of just been... intellectual partners, really, this whole time. And I liked that. Intellectual plus some other perks; I could kiss and hold her whenever I wanted, I let her curl up against me on the sofa when we had time off, and she slipped a pet name or two into conversations here and there. But my mind was so busy, I'd forgotten about the whole... consummation of the relationship aspect of it.

"Oh..." I said, probably sounding _horribly_ awkward, but I honestly hadn't been expecting her to play that card yet. "Maybe, um... dammit, I'm sorry," I said. I pulled back and grabbed at my bangs with one hand, feeling blood rush to my face in embarrassment. "Dammit, I just completely... I just completely ruined that, didn't I?"

"No," Lex assured me, getting me to lower my hand. She stepped in close and smoothed my hair back a bit, then smiled and said, "I didn't mean to spring that on you, love, I'm sorry if I did..."

"No, no, you're fine, I mean, that's totally normal, right? I mean, I don't know how you and your last boyfriend... and all... um..."

"Dib, he was an idiot, don't worry about it," Lex said, pressing a kiss against my neck. I shivered gladly at the pressure, and her contact, and her voice and her words and all, but my primary hang-up was my own age. Fourteen just felt too young for me. And I wanted to really be sure that when it started, it was right. "Do you want to wait?"

"Well, I mean, if you really want to..." _Please say we can wait, though._

Lex shook her head and pulled back to look at me again, a full, brilliant smile on her face. "Dib, I've got to admit, I like you because you're just so... _nice,"_ she told me. "Really. Maybe you aren't up front, but you're honest. If you don't want to yet, that's fine, that's absolutely fine, just tell me."

"Okay," I said, sighing out an apologetic breath. "I-I don't. I'm sorry. I just... not yet. I don't. I'm sorry."

My girlfriend laughed and nuzzled her nose on my chin, then drew me down for another direct, wonderful kiss. "No need to be sorry," she said. "Just let me know."

"Mmhmm... I still feel guilty, though."

"Well," said Lex, swaying against me a bit, "we don't have to go too far, but..."

"Hmm?"

Her lips were on mine again, and I didn't protest. The taste was incredible; sweet, but not overbearing. Her hands danced across my shoulders, and I found myself relaxing, coming down from all of my stress, from the shock that had come from being recognized earlier, from my worries about my family, and concern for getting so many things done by September, which was now only three full months away.

We didn't start that night, but it was the start of Lex regularly sleeping beside me, and of us starting to at least fool around a little more. We were still taking things slow, that's all. I did admit to myself that one of my reservations about sex was knowing that it would start up an anxiety about Zim and Gaz, and I really didn't want to think about that (trying to make 'Gaz is younger than I am!' be the main problem with that, even though I knew it wasn't), nor did I want to compare myself and Lex to them. So just taking time to explore how much further we could go each time we were together, without fully consummating anything, was what I needed, to test my comfort levels... plus, now we knew that, once it did happen, it'd be right and perfect for both of us.

– – –

Another positive thing going for me lately was that I hadn't lost Gaz to Miyuki at all, which was fantastic, and on top of that, Gaz was doing great, and getting better every time we trained together.

Probably because she actually trusted me, whereas I'd had to go through hell with Miyuki to understand my abilities, Gaz caught on fairly well. Her only stipulation to our training sessions was that Zim was never allowed to watch, which was beyond fine by me. I didn't know how things were progressing with them, but I decided to be a good older brother and not pry. I'd see them talking, sometimes holding hands, but nothing more than that. Besides, Zim was busy enough on his own. The fact that I was keeping up a relationship at all was astounding; if we hadn't started out prior to the attack, I doubted Lex and I would have had the time to even think about it, at the rate things were going now.

It was a damn good thing Tak had given us until September to prepare, since the next several weeks and even months began to fly by in a blur. We were busy as hell, but at least it was spring, and then summer, allowing us to branch into working and training outside, and really getting things moving.

Red, I had to admit, was doing a damn great job of keeping Zim's skill level in the army at just the right balance of Irken and human techniques. Watching them drill was interesting—for all of Red's yelling, Zim was being abnormally patient, and had learned over time to just plain not yell back, and let him work through (a tactic that Ira let all of us in on once I'd given Red even the slightest bit of authority on my grounds). It did strike me kind of odd, and it was something that I had to state pretty firmly that I was okay with to many other members of the army, that I'd put a couple of Irkens in charge of the fight against the Empire.

I placed Tenn in the position just below Zim's, which she was pretty proud to accept. In many ways, she was actually a better choice than he was to be heading the army, but this was my test for him. I always knew that I could fall back on Tenn, since she'd beyond proved herself to be our ally against Tak, and was the first Irken I'd known to really declare that she wanted to separate from the Empire. Having her a position below Zim would allow her to keep a better eye on him, too, and from the grin she was constantly wearing now, I knew that she understood my reasons, and was incredibly prideful of the respect she'd been given.

Now, _Red,_ though... I didn't give Red a position or a title. Especially after Ira said, "Anything you try to give him will either inflate his ego past redemption, or make him hate everything because he'll think it's like a demotion from being Tallest."

Fair enough, especially when, at a few of the combat practices I attended, Red shouted out at the troops, "You call me _Tallest_ Red or fuckin' nothing at all, you got that?"

Oh, they got that, and sometimes at dinner, Zim would roll his eyes and say that he was finding his way as the army General, but that, whenever he asked anyone for feedback, it was always, "Do we _have_ to put up with Tallest Red?" or, "That Tallest is such an asshole." Or something along those lines.

But June and July were packed with training sessions, further talks with Ms. Danvers and Zita over the phone—though nothing surfaced about Dad yet—and by the time I took a look at where we were on August first, I realized... holy shit...

We were really a team.

This group of ours, however strange, had somehow become a single unit. On one end, there were Red, Zim and Tenn: Irken strength with human cunning, and Zim was the one to really push those levels and, based on everything he'd observed during the last attack, had more counterattacks ready than I'd imagined we could have. On another end, we had Victor, Lex and Charlotte, who had seen lifetimes of paranormal activity and had been fighting their entire lives, and who had plenty of knowledge between them to know how to help ease new recruits into the supernatural world that truly had no delineation from anything else the human race had ever called 'real.' And then, straddling that line, there was me, Gaz, and Ira. The reverse of the three leading the army: humans with enough Irken understanding to make us formidable.

Gaz had taken to her Irken abilities fairly well, but she sort of treated the whole thing like a video game. Which, I guess, I could expect of her. It was a 'follow-my-lead' kind of training I did with her. Because I could accurately explain the ways I could read the static in the air, Gaz was able to then take my descriptions and work them into her own understanding. We'd started off with her just trying to steal the energy I'd collected. As brother and sister, we already had a connection, whereas I'd had to work extra to forge one with Nacea to hone my Meekrob skills.

Before she could read the air, Gaz could read me, and we started off just testing distance. I stood ten feet away and gathered energy into one hand, then instructed Gaz to focus and make herself harness that energy. At first, I gave a little, and willed some of it toward her, but once we'd made it to fifty feet away, she caught on that I was doing that and told me to stop.

Gaz and I were both stubborn enough to want to learn any new skill, uncomfortable as the source of it was. So she had that much going for her, as well. At first, whenever she got more adept at a skill, she'd joke that she'd just 'leveled up,' but when she continued to say it, I realized that she wasn't kidding, and that she was kind of right. She was trying to reach my 'level' before Tak and the Elite could attack again.

Lex sat in on some of our sessions, and Red sat in on others... Lex for 'target practice,' as she'd done for me in autumn, and Red for, well, just about everything else. He corrected our stances and asked questions and made demands that, I realized once we answered or adhered to them, helped us harness just that much more of the air's energy. As much as Red grumbled that he didn't like to help, he was doing a good job of keeping us all on track.

But standing back and looking at it all... we were ready. A few solid months of training, and we were ready.

The day before my fifteenth birthday, though, I received a call from Danvers. The day before I'd turned fourteen, I'd found out the identity of my mother, been rushed off to learn how to develop my Irken abilities, and started a year that was essentially just a cyclone of truth and lies as past clashed with present. Now, one year later, I was thrown through another loop.

Danvers had called Charlotte, but wanted to speak to me directly. I kept my spokeswoman in the room as I took the call, though, and made sure that my girlfriend and my sister were nearby, just in case there was anything I'd need them for, support-wise. Turns out that was a good idea.

"Dib?" the reporter said, sounding professional but concerned.

"Yes, speaking," I said. "Did you want to set up another interview?"

"Possibly," she told me, "but I want to give you the freedom to accept or decline. I'm calling you with information about your father."

My heart skipped, and I managed to get out, "Yeah...?" Lex accurately read my nerves and stepped over to me to take my free hand in both of hers. Gaz and Charlotte sat nearby, both eager and concerned. "Did you speak to him directly?"

"I did." I pressed my lips together to keep from letting out a yelp or anything else embarrassing on the phone with someone I only ever dealt with on that still slightly foreign Someone-With-Nametags level. "He wanted to go on record."

"Are you going to be talking with him, and—" I began.

"No," Danvers said before I could get my hopes up. "He told me everything he wanted to be said. It's just going to be in a small column, I'm handing the story to someone else."

"Well, what is it?"

"The public shutting down of Membrane Labs."

I felt a lump form in my throat, and my heart just plain stopped. "Shut—_shutting down?"_ I said, hoping I didn't erupt. Lex squeezed my hand to bring my volume down, and I continued, more rationally, "Did he tell you why?"

"Not really. It seemed very sudden," the reporter admitted. She had published no less than three articles about the SEC since May, and it had drawn in a huge interest in the Corporation, to the point where I'd had to refuse speaking to any other reporters but her, and I never gave away the location of the complex to anyone but those Charlotte deemed serious enough to come on board, who in turn were never allowed to give any information pertaining to where we were. The most recent article, which was an interview about how I was planning on handling the coming Invasion—which many, many more people believed now, to the point that Zita called regularly to say that it was changing the very face of the town—had been in the paper the week before, so maybe that had prompted something. "He told me that he'd written references for some of the scientists working under him, but had otherwise laid off the rest of his staff. It wasn't suffering or anything, but tomorrow, Professor Membrane is indefinitely shutting down Membrane Labs. He said it was for a private project."

"Anything about us? About the SEC?" I wondered.

"He didn't mention it, or you. I'm sorry. All he told me was that it was a personal choice. The staff is already getting nervous," Danvers admitted. "Membrane—well, your father—was instrumental to the cleanup after the Resisty attack. We don't even want to think about what this means, since everyone knows the Irkens are expected to land next month."

"Don't worry," I told her, "we'll spend the rest of this month getting our defenses up."

"And you know they are attacking _this town_ directly?"

"Without a doubt," I said. "They're targeting the SEC specifically, and the town will probably feel some aftermath. Tak's going to get personal before she goes global, and she has it out for me and just about everyone on my staff. But don't worry, I'm not going to let any casualties occur in town, all right? Go ahead and print that if you want. My Corporation is always going to be here to keep this town safe from any otherworldly threat."

"All right," she said, and I could detect a slight sigh.

"Anything else from my father?" I wondered.

"No, but I promise to contact you directly if I hear any more word on the reasons behind the shut-down."

I thanked her, and upon hanging up, I called a meeting to let everyone in on what I'd been told. Victor and Ira both looked about ready to strangle Dad for being so ambiguous in his actions and reasons, while Gaz sat there stone-faced, neither she nor I knowing quite what to think.

Membrane Labs shut down on my fifteenth birthday. It was filmed on the news. I hadn't seen my father in the longest time, and there, I saw him again, just as I usually did, on television.

"It is my own decision," he said, behind his ridiculous high collar, his eyes undetectable behind his blue goggles, "to close these doors, and they will open again only when the public is ready."

"Sir," a reporter in the crowd shouted, "by closing your doors and laying off your entire staff, what do you hope to achieve?"

"My reasons for terminating work in Membrane Labs are personal," he shot at the man in the crowd, who asked nothing else.

"But Professor Membrane," another man called out, "isn't it true that by closing your doors, you are, in fact, breaching your contract with—"

"No comment," was his answer.

"Professor Membrane—"

"No comment."

"Sir—"

_"NO. COMMENT. _Membrane Labs is officially and indefinitely closed."

And with that, the feed cut out, and the news station returned to show the stunned anchor, who apparently had no thoughts of his own for comment, nor did his teleprompter.

Dad always was extreme in the way he did things. I just wished that his 'personal reasons' involved, somehow, getting back in touch with us.

But, as the rest of the day proved, they didn't. So I was forced to wait, still longer, for the day when I could finally know my father, and finally make sense of the scattered trails he and Miyuki had left behind when they'd shattered the lives they once led.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Yaaaay, I'm back! ^^ I'm so glad, I was actually kind of nervous that I might not have this ready for a post today, but I did it! Man, holidays are busy, but I hope everyone is enjoying the season~~! :3

We're a step closer to learning more about Membrane, and literally on the cusp of the Invasion! Next week, I think we might be seeing some Irkens again… (and not just because Zim will be narrating ^^)

Okay, Dib's song. It's _The White Beyond_ by ThouShaltNot, who I've probably referenced a few times before, but seriously—I'm even listening to them right now, haha—their music really helped me shape a lot of this, so the beginning of this chapter was something I added in just out of sheer respect for their music. (It is the closest I will ever get to actual songfic, I swear, hah…) Every once in a while, a song will just plain grip me and not let me go. That song is one of them. :3 (Actually that whole album but I will stop talking about music now.) I almost put that in its own chapter, but with so much Dib narration, I decided to stick all of these parts together.

Also: I gave Zita the last name of her voice actor, Mo Collins. One of the major things I was struggling with in edits recently, to be honest, was Zita's storyline. She used to be a way bigger part, but had too much similarity to Tenn, who I wanted in more, so she was cut down to a smaller part, and I've been working around her old parts, haha… Sorry for my rambling… XD

But gah! I'm very excited for the part to come. Part Three is incredibly long, so I don't know if we're at the halfway mark quite yet, close though. It's definitely longer than the last couple… hope you guys are ready for the battle coming up!

Happy 2012 (in a few hours, EST)! :3 As the last post of the year, I do want to once again say a huge thank you! I've been having so much fun posting/reworking this, and I'm super excited for the chapter(s) coming up next week, in January, aaahhh!

See you all again next **Saturday, January 7****th****!**

:3

~Jizena

– – –


	17. Second Invasion 1: Decay

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Zim's Records_

Like clockwork.

When an Irken body is separated from its PAK, or when the PAK itself is about to die, the internal computer initiates a countdown to the final demise of either the body alone or both body and PAK. Some of the older PAKs, from the Original generations, had some lenience—Invader Skoodge's being the most extreme example—and could recycle themselves with little or no taxing cost on the PAK or host. The only thing that every single PAK in the Empire shared was the ability to be tampered with. A PAK could be modified to suit a different kind of countdown, and this change could occur from any source, whether direct or indirect.

Red taught me that there were limits on the charge of any one Irken's PAK laser, for example. (His, he boasted, had the best longevity and attack force, so Tenn and I just nodded and gave him that one, since he'd just go ahead and brag whether we argued or not, so best cut out anything unnecessary.) The PAK would need a certain amount of time to recharge between blasts, and thus one of the things all Elite Commanders had looked for in the past was how fast the hopeful soldiers' recharge turnaround times were.

There was also the regular healing countdown. Irkens have a much higher tolerance toward pain than humans, and it is shown especially in their regenerative abilities; cuts heal and for the most part, scars fade. My arm never healed because my PAK had recognized it as something foreign... it was a gash left on my human body, stuck in half-healing thanks to my fragment of a soul. It had taken a long time for the PAK to even react to the presence of the wound that Tak had left me on a night in a September that technically had not yet even happened—calendar-wise—but of course she was banking on some kind of countdown for that.

I knew that she hadn't picked September at random. It was highly probable that she had, at some point in the past, tampered with my PAK without my knowing, and was just waiting for the bomb to go off, so to speak.

Now quite literally divided in half between the two courses of my life, I had been seeing more and more flashes from the past during which I had known Miyuki, and would see nightmares detailing my exploits as Elite Commander, all of which I promptly tried to forget upon waking up. I was holding my own as General in charge of the SEC army, but Red and Tenn understood all too well why I would have to take breaks whenever I asked them to take over for a while.

The PAK had been targeting only my mind until now.

Now, it wanted my body. More specifically, it was recognizing my human body as a foreign host, and the 'me' that still slumbered within the chips and wires buried somewhere inside me was out for my own blood. It wanted to cut the human body out of the equation and regenerate the Irken one.

It had started out slowly, just as pangs in my arm that occurred more frequently than usual, but I had dismissed that as a side effect of having been too active lately. I was putting a lot of stress on that arm; it made sense that it would bother me. But it moved from that to a more constant burning after a while. Curious, I shut myself in one of the very few small bathrooms available on the complex (most were community-stalled for frequent use) and unraveled the bandage I still had to keep wrapped around that spot for occurrences just like this.

On an afternoon off, in fact, I was horrified to find that the bandage was soaked in blood. Like a sign; a warning. I ducked into that bathroom and unraveled the ruined bandage in the mirror, wincing as the fabric clung to the nerves around the open wound. I peeled the gauze in direct contact with the cut off gingerly, and disposed of the bloodied supplies in the trash and quickly rolled up my sleeve. My head started to spin from the sudden blood loss, but I found a small hand towel hanging beside the sink, doused it in cold water, and held it fast to my arm.

Nerves tingled up and down my entire limb, shoulder to fingertips, and my heart went into working overtime to compensate for the loss of blood. After a few minutes, the stinging died down, my headache subsided, and I was able to pull the wet cloth off of my arm without feeling like the cut was in danger of spuriously opening again. I soaked the cloth again, washed off my left hand and dabbed a palm full of cold water on my forehead as I heaved a sigh, feeling like I'd just dodged a major bullet. I glanced at the mirror, though, as I dabbed off the skin surrounding the laceration, and was instantly disgusted with what I saw.

The area around the wound was raw. Much, much too raw. My skin felt calloused but papery, and was tinged a greenish black. As if it was already dead. My heart skipped, and only one word came to mind.

Decay.

Shit... shit, shit...

This wasn't just a regular countdown. The PAK was going to make this nice and slow, wasn't it? "What the hell are you doing?" I growled, lifting my eyes to catch my own gaze in the mirror, as if that could make the PAK feel like a separate sentient being. Literally talking to myself, though, only resulted in making the situation worse.

As I glared at the mirror, my old voice spoke up from my PAK and into my head:

_"I'm winning, isn't that obvious?" _My eyes narrowed. This was not okay. _"I never lose."_

"I don't have to listen to you," I affirmed, standing my ground against myself.

Thank God Gaz was nowhere even remotely near where I'd locked myself up alone. She and I had been doing so well lately. She'd been much more readily allowing physical contact, and we had been finding more excuses to spend time together, even just to discuss a day's events. But I lived for every second of those talks. Just hearing her talk about her passions and fears was moving, and wonderful. I couldn't let that stop now.

_"No, you don't have to,"_ said the PAK. _"But you are, all the same."_

"SHUT UP," I barked. "What are you doing to my arm?"

_"I? I have no true control, not yet. But I'm going to get it. We just have to wait for that human carcass to rot away, and then—"_

"Rot?" I yelped, holding my arm up closer to the mirror. "That's seriously flesh decay?" I shut my mouth at that point, and nervously glanced behind me. I never knew who could be passing by and overhearing what to anyone else would be a nonsensical one-sided conversation. "Is it going to spread?" I hissed. "How much time do I have?"

But the PAK had shut up. I groaned out my frustration, growling through my teeth, and ran my hands angrily through my hair, tugging at the thick tangles a bit, since I was unable to just get inside myself and strangle the shit out of that PAK.

A soul wasn't just a goal for me now. It was a primary vital necessity. I _had_ to beat Fear and prove Love. Soon. I had to do it before any more of my body could start feeling the effects of that disgusting flesh decay; I had to do it before my human body could actually die in order to let the PAK take over in an Irken body again.

When I'd fallen back on my human form, it had been because my PAK had overheated and shattered. Now that the core was repairing itself, I became convinced that the Irken body it was rebuilding wasn't the one it had technically died on last time. I shuddered and felt sick, then finally made a bolt for the toilet to purge from my mouth the sour, acidic discomfort that had made my stomach churn when I made that realization. "Ugh," I muttered as I flushed the bile down, spitting out a couple times to make sure I'd rid myself of the last of it. "That fucking does it."

I stood and drank down what felt like two gallons of fresh, cold water, glad my body could at least still stand that, rinsed my mouth out thoroughly, then set to work re-wrapping my upper right arm. At least, for now, I could hide the decay. Nobody had to know, and I'd just fight through it. Show that PAK it wasn't getting to me.

– – –

Gaz did not find out. Nobody did. I tried my hardest not to complain about the new pain in my arm, since doing so would have gotten me nothing but unwanted questions. The only one who seemed to notice that something less than normal was going on with my arm was Ira, who'd seemed concerned about the nature of the wound from pretty much the moment he first saw it. I was the one who refused the help he offered, saying that it was nothing to be concerned about, or that I was just feeling particularly overworked that day. Ira didn't completely buy it, but he never pried further.

As September approached, the entire Corporation seemed to change. Every division was preparing for the coming Invasion—Charlotte Baudelaire and the assistants she'd chosen from the international ranks were busy day in and day out organizing groups and tasks; Agents Cthulhu and Bloodrose took charge of testing the three armored bunkers hidden far beneath the complex grounds; Tenn and I organized the army into squads until we had four main attack units, all of whom, we were confident, had enough of a working knowledge of defense against Irkens to stand an infinitely better chance against them than last time; Dib, Gaz, Lex and Professor Haynsworth pretty much took charge of everything else, keeping order, making sure things were running smoothly, and making sure that we, at all times, had telescopes trained on the sky, computers trained to the telescope satellites, and at least two Agents in each residence area on alert at all hours. Dib made good on his promise to protect the town itself as well, sending some of his more trusted international Agents out to various points, and leaving two in charge of the reporter to whom he had already entrusted so much knowledge about what the threat truly was.

I was glad we had a direct contact with the town at large, even though Dib didn't really hide the fact that he kind of wished that the link was his father. Ever since Membrane had shut down his laboratory, both Dib and Gaz had been anxiously monitoring the news. It got to a point at which either Charlotte or Victor had to personally talk Dib down from constantly calling the reporter, Danvers, or her assistant, Zita. "We'll learn when we learn," I overheard Victor saying to him one morning, at the very end of August.

Dib and Lex had been on breakfast rotation together that morning, and those in attendance were me, Gaz, Victor and Ira, as both Tenn and Red were glued to computers in the main communication room, watching star readings just in case any signal from the _Massive,_ or any Armada ship for that matter, were to hail early. When I arrived, the others were already in the midst of conversation, so I quietly slipped into the seat beside Gaz, which just happened to also place me between her and Ira—they could both deny it all they wanted, but I saw a connection with them that just... made me slightly uncomfortable, no matter how I tried to convince myself I was being ridiculous. It was very hard to remember that Ira was actually closer in age to the two Professors, since he still looked well under thirty, so a piece of my mind couldn't help but register him as a possible obstacle, even though reality was that I respected that man more than almost anyone I'd ever known, based on what he'd told me of his story so far.

"Hey," Gaz greeted me. Her skin warmed rapidly when I placed a kiss on her cheek and returned the greeting. Dib, who was leaning up against the counter facing us, noticed, gave me a slightly testing glance, then glared down at the phone he held in his hand. Gaz grumbled, then leaned across the counter to smack her brother across the shoulder. When he glared up at her, she spat, "Quit being all stupid and depressed about it. I'm worried, too, but you're getting annoying."

"But—" Dib tried to protest.

Lex, who had just finished slicing up vegetables for the omelettes that apparently only she was making, walked up behind her boyfriend at that point and placed her hands on his shoulders. "Love, why don't you call him directly?" she suggested.

Both Dib and Gaz tensed at that suggestion. To offer her a little support, I offered Gaz my hand, placing it palm up on her knee; it meant everything to me when she grasped and held it. When I set my gaze directly on her, though, Gaz continued staring straight forward at Dib and Lex, her head probably full of all of the problems she figured could be associated with an attempted call home. In the rare off times that I'd been able to spend alone with her, it seemed that conversation would often turn to her family anxieties, and then drop off all together, and she would just want to hold hands, thinking and talking about nothing. I'd told her that she could tell me anything she needed or wanted to, which she thanked me for, but for the most part, she preferred staying silent, but connected.

"I wish it was that easy, hon, I really, really do," Dib's response to the suggestion was. "I just—he should've called _us!"_ he erupted, storming over and slamming the phone down onto its cradle, which was positioned just to the right of the refrigerator. "If I call, it'll look like _I'm_ apologizing! Do _I_ have anything to apologize for? NO!"

"Dib," said Victor, setting down his tea and calmly walking over to where the Corporation's high-strung leader was standing. "Come on, let's talk over here for a moment."

At that point, Ira rose to pour himself more tea and help Lex continue with the omelettes; he also made it his job to distract conversation away from any Membrane family trauma and confusion, which he did fairly easily by choosing to compliment the rest of us on the work we'd been doing lately. "Tak isn't going to be an easy one to bring down," he said, "and I know how stubborn the Irken army can be, but I have a feeling we all have a pretty good shot at driving her back."

"Do you think we'll beat her?" Gaz wondered.

"I'd say we stand a rather good chance."

"What will that mean for you?" she then asked, more quietly this time. I let go of her hand. "If we beat Tak, I mean."

Ira fell silent for a moment, then took a calming sip of his tea and told her, "I'm not sure."

I hadn't thought of that. Obviously, if we managed to bring Tak down, another Tallest would have to go into position. Red's dictatorial power had been taken from him with the help of the Cabochon; he and I had pinpointed some time ago that Tak's Talisman was the thing that had to go in order to beat her and take the Empire away from her rule. There was still the question of what to do with it afterward, however. Do we destroy it? Does Red keep it and lock it away? That seemed like a question to field to Miyuki, but of course we had no idea where she was. She hadn't shown herself, not even so much as a silhouette, since Gaz's birthday. As the Mandylion, she had appeared to me at random, primarily when I was in need of help to keep me going on my aim to earn a soul... but that had been before she'd voiced her own fears on the soul subject, so I had no idea whether or not we'd be seeing anything of her in this battle at all.

Fear was the next one for me to conquer. I knew I had a fairly universal fear of death, and to some end, Tak bothered me, but I wasn't sure if I feared her necessarily. There were things that made me uncomfortable, and things I wanted to just go away, but, not having really been taught to deal with fear before, I wasn't entirely sure how to recognize it once I felt it.

A stabbing pain from my arm told me I'd know soon enough.

After giving myself a few seconds to drift into thought, I let myself listen in on the conversation at the far end of the room, and that was when I heard the Professor say to Dib, "We'll learn when we learn."

"Yeah, I guess," Dib sighed. Massaging the space between his eyes, he added, on a volume I'm sure the rest of us weren't necessarily meant to hear, "Thanks for being a dad in the meantime, though, Victor... really."

The Professor smiled, firmly clasped Dib's shoulders, and replied, "That's what I'm here for."

Gaz drew me out of my thoughts by setting a mug of coffee in front of me; I thanked her, and glanced down at the cup, curling my fingers around the warm porcelain. I saw a slight, rippling reflection of only my eyes in the swirling black liquid, before I grabbed the carton of cream from the middle of the counter and splashed a fair amount in to lighten the color and make the taste more smooth. Any reflection of myself at all, lately, had been making my heart skip.

What the hell had I seen in the Mirror, back when I'd been working with Miyuki? I had a feeling it had something to do with the reasons why Tak had always been so secretive around me, while bringing up my past here and there. The PAK's voice was a little clearer, now. It remembered more, and therefore made me remember more. It didn't feel so much that I was remembering, however, as I was just... watching. Watching the life I used to have. I felt so removed from it, yet at the same time, I could feel that PAK gripping me, trying to eat away at my human life from the inside out. I didn't know how long I had.

Well. If nothing else, this battle was sure to bring something pertaining to that to light for me. Whether or not I'd like whatever I'd learn... well... I'd leave that to time. And I'd try not to let it affect me too badly, either way.

Breakfast began once Dib and Victor had finished talking and returned to the kitchen, and just as I was further modifying my coffee with a couple spoonfuls of sugar, Red made his presence known by rounding the corner from the great hall and striding straight past the counter to demand, "Coffee."

"It's all ready in the coffeemaker," said Lex, giving the Tallest a glance over her shoulder as she supplied toast and jam to those who wanted it. "You can help yourself if you'd like."

_"Excuse_ me?" Red snorted.

"Oh, for crying out loud, Red," Ira groaned. He kindly refused Lex's offer of jam, preferring to eat his toast dry, then added before he could start eating, "Don't you think it's time you started helping yourself a little?"

"Uh, no?" said Red, as if the very idea was the most absurd notion in the world. "I've made plenty of exceptions, and this ain't gonna be one of them."

"That's why you're an idiot," Ira muttered.

"What's that?"

"Nothing." Ira then muttered a bit of what I was quite sure was Japanese under his breath, but did not give Red any more of his attention.

Red waited another minute, then finally rolled his eyes and, making a show of the fact that, yes, he, the Tallest, was crossing the kitchen to do a task for himself, so shouldn't we be proud of him, he begrudgingly poured a new cup of coffee in the mug he'd brought in with him. A suitable amount of caffeine in hand, Red then wandered over to the counter and sat on the kitchen side, which was otherwise occupied by Dib, Lex and Victor, then said, "So me and Tenn've got a date."

"What? Really?" Lex wondered. "As in—"

"I'd doubt it," Dib said calmly, taking a sip of his tea.

"No, we really did find one out," Red said, looking both confused and angry.

"Oh! Oh, I thought you meant—" Lex began, flushing. "Oh. Not that kind of... oh. Shutting up."

Ira laughed a bit, but I held my tongue. I still knew well enough to not laugh in front of Red, especially about things that he was too dense to get in the first place. "A date for the Invasion, you mean," I said, shifting things into Red's language.

"Yeah, there isn't another one we're looking for," said Red, matter-of-factly. "We used GIR's homing chip and it took a damn long time—"

"Yeah, he's kinda dysfunctional like that," I said.

"But we've got a good estimation of a date. First week of September."

So only a few days away. Any day now, we'd be in the middle of a fight against Tak's army again. This time, hopefully, we'd have a better shot of winning completely, rather than just getting the win along with a warning. Tak was a very confusing person, but one thing she did stick to was seeing through the worst for the grudges she held. And I was a pretty long-standing grudge. Dib and Gaz, too, if we were going back to the two times all three of us had had a hand in sending her successfully away from Earth for a while.

This time, though, the goal was to keep her away. The whole idea was to win the war.

"Red, any light you can shed on other attack formations she might try?" Dib asked.

"Just judging from her personality, I wouldn't put another stealth attack past her," the Tallest answered. "Plus, remember, she's got Skutch at the head of her army."

"Skoodge, too," Dib growled.

"Right, and he's a total idiot, too, but it's Skutch we should be looking out for," said Red. "He's way too brash—he always kinda pissed me off—but he knows how to fight. He's cocky as fuck, too, and he'll just plain start up the attack. I've got a good feeling he'll be leading her first division."

"Tak herself is expected, correct?" asked Victor.

"Yeah. I sure as hell want a one-on-one fight with that bitch," Red admitted, taking a piece of toast from the plate of extra slices Lex had set down at the center of the counter and biting into it. "Anyway, as for formation, we should be able to see the _Massive_ in the sky pretty easily," he told us sternly. "Earth is a big enough planet that I'm pretty sure the ship can actually land here... in which case, we've got to be careful. She'd better too," he snarled as an afterthought. "My ship's been scratched up enough in recent years as it is."

"Well, you've done a masterful job at piloting it into things before," Ira taunted calmly, eyeing Red as he passively sipped some tea.

"You're one to talk," Red snorted; "you can't even fly it."

"I can't even read Irken, and you think I could fly that huge thing?"

"Shut up."

Ira smiled.

"One thing I wanna add to the plan," Dib spoke up. "If we can, guys, try to down some of the ships, but keep them in working condition. I want a fleet. I want us to be prepared to attack Empire turf next, if need be."

"Um, hey, woah," Red snapped. "You'll do no such thing."

"Yes, I will," Dib stated firmly, staring the Tallest down. "If Tak leaves this planet today still in charge of the Irken Empire, we're going there next. Red, it's got nothing to do with the Empire as a whole, just the way Tak's running it. It's her regime we're bringing down. Got that? If anyone gets a chance, _commandeer a ship."_

The rest of us nodded our understanding, and I assured Dib I'd pass the message along to the rest of the army. Everything was more or less settled. We just had to wait for the inevitable fight. Knowing that, Red stood to return to his work, but when he did, I noticed that he hadn't actually touched his coffee the entire conversation.

"You need this?" I asked Red, passing him the sugar bowl before he could leave.

Red glanced down at it, then took another defiant bite of toast. "Nope," he said, turning so that he could lean back against the counter beside the stove.

"Eh? I would've thought you'd be using this all the time," I said, a little confused. An all too well known fact about the Tallest—Red, at least... I wasn't sure if this was one of the things Ira faked or not—was that sugar was a weakness. Red was once known to drop just about anything if there was snack food involved. I hadn't even really put two and two together on that, lately; I hadn't thought to keep up with his and Ira's (or Tenn's for that matter) eating habits. At most breakfasts, Red had only really been known to drink water or occasionally orange juice. I hadn't yet seen him dive into coffee, so that alone was odd, never mind the fact that he wasn't weighing it down with sugar.

"Nope," said Red. He got up to leave, and said nothing more about it. His body language spoke plenty, though. Red was actually quite uncomfortable with the fact that he didn't want his coffee sweetened to taste better.

"Sure..."

The rest of that day was spent in speculation. Everyone went about tasks as usual... those who felt the need to had the freedom to train whatever strengths they wanted to hone, and I took time with Tenn to explain Dib's want to build up a fleet with the army. But I couldn't help feeling preoccupied all day. And every day thereafter until the attack itself.

My arm hurt worse and worse. Tenn was noticing, now. At least Red told me to shrug it off and not be an idiot, but Tenn seemed legitimately concerned. I was sure it had something to do with Tak's proximity, since she hadn't exactly been subtle about her preference for the 'old' me versus the 'new.' My PAK still hadn't really revealed much, if any, of my history with her, and I wondered if it was possible that there were things that it truly had wanted to forget. Tak was a walking nightmare, so I wouldn't be surprised. But if there had been some kind of trauma involving her in my past, I felt that I should know about it. All I knew was that she had at one point been in my Elite, along with Red, Tenn, and even Skutch. Originals, all.

I checked up on my arm daily, just to make sure the raw skin hadn't eaten into the areas around the already infected wound. It hadn't spread far since the first day I'd seen it, maybe a couple millimeters in each direction, but it was still spreading. I was still at risk of dying. My human body was, anyway. I wasn't about to give up. Somehow, during this fight, I would learn more about Fear... and how to beat it, once and for all.

– – –

"Figures."

That was the only statement anyone had to say on September second, when GIR started screaming from getting a signal. Gaz was the one to make the comment, after I had calmed the robot down somewhat. "MIMI'S IN MY BRAINS!" GIR shrieked. Prompting me to have to calm him down again.

Our 'core team,' as we'd begun calling those of us who lived in the main building and made up the best fighters of the Corporation, gathered in the common room once I'd gotten word out about the signal. Each and every one of us was prepared. Prepared for just about anything. We'd been training long enough. We'd been wondering long enough. Time to just do this. Us against Tak's Elite—_bring it on,_ I thought, knowing my first of many personal tasks would be the continuation of my one-on-one against Skutch. Something told me he'd be able to give me some of the answers I needed, whether or not he told me outright or just happened to spill enough choice words; either way, I was looking forward to going up against him a second time, even though I did sort of miss the odd partnership I'd had with him back on the _Massive._ He was a strange one to figure out, Skutch. All I knew was that he'd fallen under Tak's hypnosis, if even just a little. Imagine, if I could somehow jostle him out... how the hell would Tak react then? I grinned, given the idea. Anything to get her angry for losing something.

"All right, guys," Dib said, once we'd all gathered, "this is it. Zim, Tenn, I want you two out first. Deploy the army. How much time to we have till they get here, do we know?"

"Reading from GIR said not long," Tenn told him. "Half an hour?"

"That's all the time we need."

Dib went on to give others assignments: Charlotte, Victor, Lex and Ira were to keep their eyes on assigned sections of the complex grounds, and be ready to aid whenever and wherever necessary; Red was given some freedom of choice on where he wanted to be, and his answer was that he'd go straight for Tak, and therefore wanted to scour the fields alone—Tenn was placed on his immediate backup, though he also requested that Ira be on standby if he needed him, and Ira grudgingly agreed. Dib and Gaz, it was decided, would stay just outside of the headquarters building, in case Tak or anyone directly below her should choose to attack there first, then join on in the main fight once they were either sure there was no direct threat on the main building, or they had successfully driven out anything that had attacked.

Orders successfully given, every one of us but Red donned a grey SEC military coat and took to our stations. Gaz walked me out. Even though she had been fairly quiet recently, she grabbed me in for a hug before I could be off on my way to the front of the line. "What's up?" I asked her, drawing her closer, my hand on the small of her lightly curved back.

"Just be careful, and... you know," said Gaz. She'd grown over the summer, I'd been noticing. Each time we hugged, I felt like she'd settled into yet a newer height. She'd been five foot seven during the Incident, and I was pretty sure she'd hit that height for good now, just as her brother was pretty well established at five-eleven. I liked her at that height; it suited her. And God, she was beautiful.

Unable to help myself from doing so, I bent and kissed her as thanks for her well wishes. A slight shock from inside me stated pretty clearly that the PAK did not approve, but I did not care about any input that thing wanted to interrupt me with that day, and for now, I could ignore it. "Stay strong," I told Gaz as I pulled back. Gaz nodded, then returned to join her brother while Tenn and I made our way out through the field.

We brought a group of about fifty with us, all of whom were perfectly committed to doing anything and everything possible in order to keep the Irkens back, and stop the Invasion here before it could spread out to the town, state, country or world. It was a better day for battle this time around, too. Hardly any clouds in the sky, and early in the afternoon at that, giving us plenty of daylight to get things started in. The plan was to just stop everything that afternoon, since we didn't exactly have the numbers to plot out many shifts, and we couldn't just fight until we collapsed. Take them down here and now. That was all we could try to do.

Luckily, GIR's data was accurate. Around half an hour after he'd received the screaming signal, a single ship landed directly in front of where Tenn and I had led the army. The fact that they came right for us felt rather insulting, but it was just like the Irkens to go for something direct and taunting that way. Especially someone as young and brash as Invader Skutch, who rose to the roof of the building-sized ship by means of a circular, elevating dias.

Once standing atop the ship, Skutch grinned down at us, then jumped, evanesced mid-descent, and reappeared in a three-point landing a few feet away from where we stood. He straightened, lifted his head, and gave us a most pleasant greeting:

"Well, hey, there, fuckers!"

Tak clearly had no idea what she was doing, leaving Invader Skutch in charge of her Elite. His youth showed. Skutch had always kind of been a rebel within the system... doing things his own way just within the borders of what was legal to do—in other words, he had always gotten away with kind of being an asshole. Hopefully, I could use his arrogance against him. After all, I'd once had a similar way of going about things. I used to be a fan of free-for-all fighting tactics, but organized soldiers had been able to get the best of me; this time, I was the one who would hopefully have the upper hand.

"Where's your leader guy?" Skutch asked, looking around, pushing back his wild red-orange bangs for a better view. He was dressed as he'd been the fight before, in a high-collared, long-sleeved red jacket with more zippers than I'm sure the coat actually needed, and black pants and shoes. He had no weapon drawn, but I was sure I'd be seeing something or other soon enough. His clouded blue eyes lighting on the army behind us, he snorted, then gave me a scathing look. "That your force?" he mocked me. "That's what you're fighting us with? That's just sad."

"Underestimate us all you want, Skutch," I said, while Tenn simply glared warnings at him. "I promise you a better fight."

"Oh, speaking of that, bro, let's fuckin' go, huh?" he laughed, drawing the shape-changing small knife from his right boot.

"Bro?" I scoffed. "The hell awful ways of learning human speech have you been studying?"

"You know, you're being annoying already," Skutch sneered. "Let's say you and me get outta here and finish our fight right now! How's that?"

I drew my two matching _sairedon,_ and as soon as I'd twirled them out to their longer size, Skutch swung his knife into the shape of a single-edged blade resembling a Chinese _dao_ and blocked the attack I threw at him. "Get out of here, eh?" I said. "Hey, Tenn, can you—"

"I'm on it," Tenn assured me, as one side of the enormous ship opened. Five lines of fifteen human hologrammed Irkens marched out from the ship, causing Skutch to show a cocky grin. Behind him, I could see that Skoodge was leading the first wave. "Do what you've gotta, I guess."

"Thanks."

Before I could register anything else, I felt the wind become stronger, and within seconds Skutch and I were standing on the other side of the lake, at the base of a great cliff. _Stupid Irkens and their teleporting,_ I thought. I'd forget that about them from time to time (primarily because I had never been very good at it), but Irkens, if they train it, can be quite adept at relocating others, not only themselves. I shoved away from Skutch, then, standing my ground, I readied my weapons. Skutch crouched down into a ready stance as well, with his scimitar almost over his head, and signaled me to make the first move. I took in a deep breath, tightened my grip on my _sairedon,_ and sought out the best mode of attack.

"Come at me!" Skutch shouted.

_"You could use an advantage."_

Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit. Not here, not now, not during this fight.

_Leave me alone,_ I pleaded the PAK. _Stay out of this._

_"Do you have any idea what those weapons can do?"_

Fuck. Seriously?

_I don't care. Just stay the hell out of this._

_ "You cannot silence me forever."_

"Quit stalling!" Skutch hollered. "You're pissing me off! If you don't want to attack first, fine!"

"Just one question," I snapped back. "Who are you fighting? Me, or your Elite Commander?"

Skutch paused, then let himself laugh. "You figured a piece of it out, huh?" he smirked. "Good! This is gonna be pretty fuckin' interesting."

"Watch your mouth," I muttered. "And for the record, a fight with me is all you're gonna get."

"Oh, we'll see."

My words for him entirely worn out, I took that moment to spring forward. I decided to begin my attack with both _sairedon, _and to attack from the right. I got a cut in on his left arm before he could counter, then swung out again, just narrowly missing his neck. Skutch pulled away and jumped back out of my range, then switched his weapon to a broadsword and attacked from overhead. I just barely had the time to block him, by holding my twin weapons above my head.. As I was in an awkward position, I cast a glance across the lake, hoping to catch a glimpse of the battle on the other side, or, better yet, just Gaz. I could see nothing, though... the lake was too wide. I started to wonder how I was going to get back across if I struck Skutch down, since I knew I couldn't swim (it was one of the things I'd just never learned how to do), then did a double take and pushed my opponent off of me, lashing out once again on my own, hoping that Gaz would be all right without me being there at the site of the main battle to protect her.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

****Another chapter going up within the next hour! ^^ I'll write more of a note then~ :3

~Jizena~

– – –


	18. Second Invasion 2: Potential

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Dib's Records_

It was a damn good thing Gaz and I remained at the headquarters building.

After the others had been deployed, and I had seen that this next battle was well underway, an awful pressure came from deep inside our main building. I trusted Zim and Tenn to have a handle on the army, and faith in my Corporation to hold up against the Irkens. After all, the PAK was an easy weak point to aim for. Everyone had been briefed on what Tak looked like, and Zim had recalled to the best of his ability how she would appear as a Tallest, should she appear without her hologram. I had, however, sent Lex out with the specific wish that she stay at all times with her father. It wasn't that I didn't trust my girlfriend as a fighter... it was that I was not about to take any chances. I wasn't about to repeat Nacea's tragedy; not with anyone, especially not with my girlfriend. I'd been thinking about us lately, and Lex's want to take things further. Fifteen now, I was feeling more like I'd be ready... just... obviously not on the brink of battle. I adored that girl, and could not see myself functioning as well as I had been recently without her; there was a lot more I still wanted to explore with and about her. But I couldn't let myself be distracted now.

Now, there was a threat to the very place I'd been calling home for quite some time.

"You feel that?" I asked my sister. "Something's wrong with the air here."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Gaz nodded. "I've got a feeling it's something we should investigate together, though, don't run off on me."

"I get that sense, too," I admitted. "Let's get in there and investigate."

Gaz snorted as we strode strongly back inside. "What?" I wondered.

"Investigate," she taunted me. "You haven't changed at all, Dib. You're still all stupidly into this alien chase."

"Yeah, except now I'm actually saving the world," I reminded her.

"Yeah, I guess, there's that."

The time for making jabs came to an end pretty damn quickly, once we pinpointed the location of the unnatural pressure being in the grand hall. Our footsteps echoed in the empty hall; my sister's heeled boots clacked on the hard, polished floor. We were alone. Or so it would have looked. My back began to burn, in the spot between my shoulderblades, and I knew we had a visitor. The air just felt wrong. I could read the static almost too easily, and it was wild. Something wasn't just in there with us, it was making it a point to be a disturbance.

"Show yourself," I ordered.

Within seconds, the shape of a long robe appeared before us, and I heard my sister express disappointment in the form of a half-voiced groan. "Is that Mom?" Gaz snarled. The last time Miyuki had appeared before us, she had indeed been wearing a long cloak, and Zim had identified her as a being called the Mandylion. Gutsy, for her to show herself here and now. Gutsy, and unwelcome.

"Miyuki, what are you doing?" I demanded. "There's a battle going on out there! We don't have time to talk to you!"

Her aura was incredibly cold, as was her voice, when she spoke. "I'm here simply to say that this is such a perfect opportunity for you to awaken your potential and test out your Irken form." She kept her face hidden. I should have expected no less.

"What? No!" I snapped, turning on my heel. "Forget this, I'm going out to fight."

"Dib... wait," my sister began, "that's not Mom."

"Huh?" I turned back. "You sure?"

"Change," 'Miyuki' told me. I saw her purple eyes glowing ominously behind the hood of her cloak when she slightly lifted her head. I could not see past the fact that it was most likely her.

"Change?" I scoffed. "How?"

"It is the next step you are destined to take. Isn't it? To step up and accept your Irken heritage. You know it sleeps inside you."

"Become _Irken?"_ I shouted, outraged. I knew it was a probability, but I still was not ready to accept that I would at some point have to come to very physical terms with every bit of my mother's genetics. I glared forward and fought her, "Absolutely not! Dad wanted me to lead this organization, Miyuki; it's _his_ side of the family I'm fighting for right now!" Ugh, that was my defense? Play the Dad card? I really was obsessed. And pissed. But still obsessed. I wanted to know what the hell Dad's deal was. More than anything, I just wanted to be able to talk to him and hear him say that he really did once take pride in the same kind of work I did. That was the person I was in this leadership role for. Not the insane trademark of a man who never called me by my first name. "I'm leading and protecting the humans. Don't like it? Tough!"

'Miyuki' angrily thrust a hand out toward me. "You're going to change eventually, Dib," she said, clenching her hand into a fist. It felt as though she'd grabbed hold of my heart. I winced and stumbled back, clutching my chest with my right hand, too stunned to cry out and demand to know what was going on. "Awaken your potential."

"Don't... say that..." I managed to growl out at her, trying to fight back the pain inside me. I felt like I was on fire. I felt as though my lungs could just burst at any moment, that my entire body could just go up in smoke.

"You want power, don't you?"

The feeling in my chest went from a burning to a strange... whir. Like there was something spinning at an alarming rate, its centrifugal force keeping me running, rather than the beat of my heart. Like a well-oiled machine. Like a computer.

Power, huh?

I couldn't answer that. A great part of me did, yes, but on the other hand I had almost more power than I could handle. It was becoming overwhelming. And now, I realized, as 'Miyuki' lowered her hand, that the subtle want for more power was starting to take control of me.

"Dib!" Gaz cried out, rushing up to me. "What's going on?"

Suddenly, I felt the pressure in the room change. The person standing in front of me was not my mother, and in my stubbornness I was too preoccupied to notice. Miyuki's eyes were green, not purple. Miyuki was not the one standing in front of me wearing that cloak. Tak was.

"You..." I growled, hearing and feeling my voice take on a lower tone as I spoke. "You've wanted me to be Irken for a long time, now, haven't you?" The whirring multiplied. My lungs burned. I coughed and grabbed at my chest with my left hand as well; I doubled over and stumbled back. It was unbearable. Just the way that bitch liked to fight. Dirty. Underhanded. And I'd fallen for it right away. Great 'leader' I was.

Tak removed her hood and her indigo eyes flashed purple once, and when she laughed a bit, her voice was her own. My sister gasped and shouted out our enemy's name, but Tak just smirked and tossed off the robe completely, revealing her new outfit underneath. She was in human guise, but she'd updated the hologram yet again. She was wearing a very short, kimono-like battle dress, which folded into the center and was tied around the waist with a black sash. The material itself was the color of her eyes, aside from the black sleeves. Around each wrist was a thick metal cuff bearing the Irken insignia, and on her feet she still wore those same, thrice-buckled boots.

"So glad to finally be fighting this battle with you, Dib," she grinned.

Her voice stung into me as the pain kept rising. My back was burning, and I felt as though all my soul's energy was being concentrated between my shoulderblades. I wasn't ready to become Irken, but something Tak had awakened within me was. It occurred to me, then, that the energy was converging on the exact spot Bloodrose had applied the Meekrob tattoo. Adding that power to the Irken strengths that were becoming more and more potent, there was no telling what was about to happen to me. My head was spinning, entire body reeling against this new foreign influence.

"Dib, let's get out of here!" Gaz cautioned, pulling on my arm. To Tak, she shouted, "What do you think you're doing? And why are you just standing there?"

"I'm enjoying the show," Tak purred.

As soon as she said that, I felt a sting on my back as something seemed to push out from inside me and materialize in the area above the Meekrob tattoo. I coughed, choked, then cried out in pain and backed against the wall, turning and clawing at the wall for support with both hands. Gaz cried out my name again in shock and horror, but I could barely hear her.

The pain was pushing against me, feeling as though something was ripping through my flesh, though I knew nothing was. Nonetheless, I was being attacked by a parasite, one that had been invisible within me for fifteen years. I glared forward and cried out, my vision becoming more and more exact until everything became shaded in red. Violent tendencies rushed into my mind, and now I felt without question something latching onto my back.

It dug into my spinal column and sent a whirring jolt up into my brain. My vision went completely black, then cleared into red-tinted view yet again. I felt both hot and cold, sane and crazed, terrified and highly competent. The shock told me one thing and one thing only. I could be stronger. I could have much, much more power than I'd ever known. I could have control over anything I wanted.

Gaz screamed, and I reached up almost unconsciously with my left hand and pulled my glasses off, having no use for them anymore. My right hand dug so far into the wall that I accidentally ripped a chunk of it out, the plaster immediately disintegrating in the heat of my hand. I took a few steps away from the wall, then turned to face Tak, unintentionally snapping my glasses in half in my left hand.

"Dib, your back!" Gaz shouted, backing away from me. I looked over at her, but still couldn't shake the fact that everything was in shades of red. "Oh, God, oh, God..."

"Lovely!" Tak commented. "I never thought I'd see that power of yours so soon. Welcome to our side, human."

Not remembering that we were indoors, I silently held my right hand out to my side and gathered up a huge red orb of energy, which I immediately thrust in Tak's direction. I barely had to think about it; where the energy was coming from, or how much static I could control within my limits. It just... came. Tak took the hit, smirked, and disappeared. She was no longer in the building. Oddly enough, I could feel where she'd gone, and prepared myself to follow her, watching her path in my mind. I knew exactly where she was; I had a signal on her. And I didn't question it. Of course I knew where she was. Of course...

"Dib... Dib, you can't go out there like that," Gaz warned me.

"She's our enemy," I said, my voice sounding almost void of emotion, and a bit lower than usual. "She has to be destroyed."

"Listen to yourself!" Gaz shouted. "You're acting no better than any of those Irkens right now, Dib, look at you!"

"What?" I demanded.

"Dib, there's a PAK on you!"

Under normal circumstances, that would have shocked and frightened me, but in my current environment, under the weight of my hatred and repulsion for Tak, I gave in, feeling nothing. "What do you expect?" I found myself saying. In some ways, I was conscious of the words that were coming out of me, and had I said them at any other time, I would have said them bitterly. "I'm a Tallest."

That said, the PAK proved its existence by sending a jolt surging through my body, revitalizing all of my senses in a half-mechanized way. Searching for Tak again in my mind, my PAK allowed me to lock onto her position, and within seconds, I'd teleported myself to her location.

Teleportation had been a shaky feat of mine until that day. I could surge step pretty well, manipulating the air around me to move faster and more accurately around, but full teleportation was still hard. Being human. But that PAK made everything easier. I didn't have to think. Why think when that parasitic internal computer could think for me...? It was both a computer and an organ. What a terrifying design. What a perfect idea for a society meant to be uniform and ideal.

Given the circumstances under which I had been forced to accept the PAK, I could barely access my own thoughts and reservations. Everything was just—happening. Nothing more than that. In the back of my mind, I knew how wrong and how flawed the PAK and cloning system was, but I just... could... not... think about that.

I had followed Tak outside, to the edge of the clearing near the woods, just before the cemetery, where Nacea's favorite rose bushes grew. Tak almost yelped when she saw me, then growled and sent a blast at me. It was then that I noticed the strange, glowing gem around her neck. That was the thing that had given her power, to make her a Tallest. That was my target.

Ignoring the fact that I had a weapon at all, I gathered energy in both hands—the color I could not determine, since all I could see were shades of red. "Go on and kill me," Tak grinned.

"I plan on it," I found myself saying, raising up my right hand and throwing the energy at her. I didn't miss. Quickly I gathered energy in my right hand again and shot the orb in my left hand at Tak.

She recovered quickly while I was preparing to attack again, and she laughed deep in her throat. "Feels wonderful, doesn't it?" she purred. "That overwhelming power that comes with being a Tallest. You see why I wanted that power so badly for myself?" With that, she gathered energy quickly between her hands and shot it at me before I could attack her.

I got rid of the orbs in my hands and put up a barrier instead. It came so easily. Everything came so easily. Don't think, just do. Such was life with a PAK. It was like my body just existed to give that PAK the means to make its functions better and bolder. I could do—anything. Tak snarled when she missed, then gathered another orb, ready to attack.

Just then, she was hit with a blast from the side. I lowered my shield and looked to my right. My sister was standing there, energy gathered in both hands, looking infuriated at both of us. "I'll attack you next, Dib, if you don't snap out of it!" she warned me.

"Needing your little sister to help you?" Tak snorted. "I'd expected better of you, Dib."

"Shut up," I told her, searching my PAK for possible new ways to attack.

"Get your mind off of your stupid PAK!" Gaz shouted. "I can see you rooting around in there. Stop it!"

"Stay out of this," I growled at her. I didn't even have control over my emotions. If I had emotions. The PAK was too much to handle all at once.

Gaz snarled and shot Tak again. The false Tallest was about to attack her in return when suddenly she turned her head, as though someone had called to her. She glared back at the two of us. "Let's fight for our position later, little kids," she grinned, just before disappearing.

"Dammit, she can't just go off like that!" I shouted. I started to search for her in my head, but Gaz rushed up and held me back.

"You're not going after her!" she ordered angrily. "Not like this, okay? You need to stop this! You can't control a PAK as a human, Dib, stop it!"

A great part of me wanted to ignore her and shove her away. But, looking down at her, I knew I couldn't. "LET—THE PAK—GO," Gaz insisted, staring daggers up at me. She grabbed my shoulders, hard, and forced me to look at her. "You are not allowed to lose it like that," she snapped. "Not on me right now, not _ever,_ Dib, got that? Yeah, we're part Irken. Yeah, Mom's a total control freak and kind of a bitch for not mentioning that this might happen and what to do if it did. And you know what? Tak's right. You are powerful. So you should be stronger than this and you should just suck it up and not let that Goddamn PAK control you! YOU GOT ME?"

Gaz always did have a talent for shocking me into listening. And listen I finally did. She was probably the only one who could have jolted me out of that situation, now that my brain was free enough to think of that. We were only a few months apart. As siblings, we were incredibly close. And this PAK fiasco was just one thing that was going to strengthen our family bond. Yeah... Gaz was all the family I had, and all I'd ever needed. Now, though, I could have used some sound advice from one parent or the other. Gaz and I were faced with something about ourselves we truly did not understand. There was no way our parents were insane enough to make us deal with all of this on our own.

Finally feeling the beating of my heart and the regular rush of air through my lungs again, I heaved a heavy sigh, and cautiously my sister let go of me. "You're okay now?" she asked hopefully.

"I can't think of how to get this off of me..." I said, my voice finally expressing the inner fear I'd had of the PAK from the start.

From a distance, I heard Charlotte call out to Gaz for backup, just as a few Irkens, out of hologram, were approaching me. I'd forgotten that the battle was already well underway, and we two weren't the only ones facing down a threat. My sister looked up at me, asking me with her eyes if I'd be all right by myself. "I'll be fine," I told her, unable to manage a smile for her, since I was just worried about how to get rid of the PAK. And once I did, I realized, I'd have limited vision since I'd snapped my glasses in half. I wanted the PAK gone, and I didn't want to think about the scare again until I actually had to become the Tallest.

Gaz hesitated, then nodded and rushed over to where Charlotte was.

Trying to rely less on the PAK and more on nature, I gathered smaller orbs of static energy in both hands, preparing to fight. It began fairly easily, but I was so distracted. The longer I held the Irkens off, the more the PAK wanted to help me. It was becoming almost unbearable for me to be fighting with energy, but my sword would have been highly ineffective against the Irkens, what with them being so small.

It wasn't long until the Irkens surrounded me on all sides. Gathering energy in each hand, I called out to my godfather for backup, but he was out of earshot. As the Irken soldiers advanced, I did my best to fight them off, blasting as best I could. There were too many of them; I couldn't hold them off on my own for much longer.

Just as one was about to fire directly at me, several of the Irkens' PAKs began to malfunction due to visible electrical issues, and in seconds the PAKs had exploded, even causing a bit of a chain reaction. The remaining Irkens looked absolutely panicked, but not enough so to back off. Instead, the ones in the front line glared at me and demanded an explanation.

I began to panic myself, hoping that my own PAK wouldn't short out. "You hold still," someone said from behind me. I was about to ask who had spoken, since in my shock I couldn't place the voice, but before I could say a thing I felt a jolt from my PAK and I cried out, praying it wouldn't kill me. On the contrary, the mechanized functions of the parasite released my mind completely, and I felt my back relieved of it within seconds. The heat subsided and I again felt the soft texture of my shirt on my back in place of the PAK. I let out a sigh of relief, then began to panic again when I saw that the Irkens were still advancing.

My eyes no longer saw things in shades of red, and it was true that my vision was limited by my nearsightedness, but I had enough of a handle on things to be able to get a clear view of everything going on. I was left with my own strength, completely freed from the PAK's influence, and therefore had to deliberate what my best course of action was.

Before I could prepare an attack, someone rushed out in front of me, and again, an electrical surge shorted out several Irken PAKs. Blue sparks of electricity lingered in the air around the lifeless Irkens. The remaining Irkens didn't even run, such was their stupidity. It took a moment for me to register exactly what was happening, since it had all occurred so fast: the freeing of my mind from the PAK, the attacks on the Irkens... someone stepping in to my aid. It hardly seemed real, but at the same time, I almost wouldn't have wanted the course of this fight to run any other way.

Fixing my gaze straight ahead, my heart jumped. I couldn't believe my eyes once I'd noticed who was protecting me.

It was my father.

I took in an audible gasp and stumbled back as my father held out his hands, activating the electric current in his sleek black gloves, and sent a shock at the rest of the Irkens, causing their PAKs to malfunction and explode as well. Once all of them had been taken care of, my father turned to look at me, and his goggles flashed light blue. There were several shocks of grey in his black hair, but otherwise, due to his choice of attire, he looked unchanged since the last night I'd seen him.

"Dad?" I yelped. I could feel tears form. "Wh-what're you doing here?"

"Heard you could use a little help," he said, holding up one hand and snapping his fingers, a blue electric shock sparking around the glove as he did so.

"Heard?" I choked. "Wh-who from?" Danvers, maybe?

"Intuition, son."

_Take down that stupid collar,_ I wanted to say, but didn't. I couldn't even speak for a moment. All this time wanting and hoping to see or speak to my father, to confront him, to exchange just one word... to learn something, anything at all from him, anything that might open my eyes a little to my own damn life... after all that time, after so many years, here he was protecting me.

What the _hell?_

"Oh, my God, you're such an idiot!" I barked at him. "What the hell is going on? Why are you here, Dad? What even—what—why are you—"

Dad laughed, and for the love of God I wanted him to take down that fucking collar so I could actually _see_ him laugh, to know if he was actually mocking me or if he might possibly, _possibly_ be laughing at himself. "I'm here to give you a hand," Dad told me.

"You closed your lab!" I shouted.

"Yes, I did."

"You breached your contract!"

"I did that, too."

"WHY?"

"Because this is my organization," he told me strongly, standing firm. For the first time in my fifteen years, I felt like I was hearing my father talk sense. His voice was... well, similar—low, commanding, proud of how fucking smart he was—but it lacked something now that had been there before.

As a media personality, Dad had tended to speak theatrically. He'd announce each of his inventions with the intensity of a poor actor no one could tell was unskilled. There had always been something false about his public voice, which had carried into the way he spoke at home. For once in my life... it sounds stupid, given my own recent issues, but... my father sounded human. Relatable. Real.

"This is the organization I left to you," he corrected himself, "and I'm not going to let anything happen to it." His goggles flashed light blue again, as if to tell me he was looking directly at me, and he added, "Or to you."

My eyes widened. I could barely believe what I was hearing. "You mean it?" I asked.

"I'll do my best," he replied. "Looks like everything's cleared up here. Let's keep moving. There are plenty more where those came from. Believe me, I blasted off dozens of them on the way in."

Not knowing what else to do, I nodded, and the two of us were off. "Okay, no, really?" I asked my father as we ran, drawing my sword to strike down an approaching Irken on my side. My father, at the same time, gathered up a ball of electricity between his hands and shot it forward, striking down an additional three. "You're seriously here to help?"

"I've already cleared that up, son, now let's worry about other things," he replied, skidding to a halt as a great deal of Irkens surrounded us. "Put that sword away, it has no range."

"Yeah, but Dad—"

"Your mother taught you how to fight, didn't she?" I froze, pressing my back up against his as part of Tak's army encircled us. "Put that sword away and use your distance attacks, trust me."

Hesitantly, I slid my sword back into its sheath and borrowed energy from the air, creating blue orbs in both hands. Blue as the sparks he himself used. "You know..?" I whispered.

"I created these gloves in order to mimic the powers you've always had," said my father, already starting to shoot electricity at the soldiers. As the Irkens approached me I fired at will, keeping myself under control so I wouldn't have PAK troubles again. As though he'd read my mind, the next thing my father said was, "Haven't fallen completely into an Irken state of mind, have you?"

"No," I shuddered, shorting out two Irkens' PAKs to prove it. "Dad, what the hell? Why didn't you ever talk to me—to us about this?" I shot again, the color of the orbs slowly turning green as I got angrier. "You've been, what, avoiding me for... well, my entire life, and now—I mean, I appreciate it, I do—you turn up and talk about my powers like I was brought up half Irken from the beginning!"

Dad struck out at a few more Irkens. Their numbers were greatly dwindling. "I promise to explain myself later," he told me.

"Holy shit, I don't think I've ever heard you use the word 'promise,'" I commented. "Ever."

"There's a first time for everything, son," said Dad, taking out another Irken with a quick shock from his gloves. "Now, how's your sister?"

"Great, Dad. She's doing great," I muttered.

"Thought so. And your godfather?"

I glared up at him. "You're scaring me."

"Keep your eyes on your target, son, we can't be distracted right now."

Damn.

I felt myself grinning. Just because we were in the thick of battle, I could let myself be happy about seeing Dad. I could be happy that I was fighting alongside him. I could be happy that Dad had honestly just sworn allegiance to the Corporation, and essentially just identified himself as a parent to me. A concerned parent. Someone who actually cared about my well-being; mine and Gaz's. Later, I was sure I'd come down off of the high and want to tear him apart for all those years of neglect and covered truths, but for now, for once, I'd take my father's advice.

Eyes on my target.

Here we go.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Notes:**

Yaaaaaay~! Happy New Year, all! I'm so, so excited to get this next arc started! (Total cop-out calling this arc 'Second Invasion,' but I wanted to differentiate it from the first, heh…)

Zim's struggling pretty badly… as is Dib. Honestly, I could easily have called this the 'PAK' arc, too. But the Invasion is the main issue here~ ^^ Tak is back! And she's a bitch. But as sudden and underhanded as her attacks are, she's fun to write. And yes, at last, Membrane is finally back in the story! :3 I've been wanting to get to this part for sooooo long, you have no idea. I adore this man, and I can't wait to bring him back in as a full character, rather than the enigma he's been all this time. Also Skutch (I will never stop voicing my love for Skutch…). We're in for a fun battle; I hope you're ready! :3

Thank you all so much for reading! ^^ I hope you enjoy this arc~ And I will see you all again next **Saturday, January 14****th** (after a Friday the 13th aughaugh)!

:3

Much love,

~Jizena

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	19. Second Invasion 3: Fighting Dirty

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**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

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_Zim's Records_

"That's more _like_ it, bro!" Skutch grinned as I cut into him twice with my blades. He'd gotten in a few good hits with me as well, but for the most part, I had the upper hand. I had a feeling, though, he was just waiting until he'd worn me down a bit. He'd change his weapon soon enough into something I just couldn't counter. Something was telling me he was holding back, waiting for me to use up energy, waiting for the best time to strike.

"Would you quit saying that?" I shouted back at him. I rushed toward him and dealt a swift cut with my left hand, but Skutch smirked, dodged, and shifted his weapon from a broadsword to the _manriki_ he'd mostly been using during the last attempted Invasion. That thing had impeccable range, and he swung it down toward my back. I didn't even want to think about what kind of awful flashes that might jostle, if he hit me in the spot where those scars crossed to remind me of the PAK still buried somewhere inside, so I reached out and grabbed the _manriki's_ chain, hauled Skutch toward me, and headbutted him. "It's annoying," I said, to complete my thought.

_"Ow!" _my opponent spat, stumbling backwards. He retracted his weapon, but kept a firm grip on it, and I gave him a few seconds to recover. It wasn't even out of enjoyment for the fight—at least, I hoped I wasn't enjoying it—as much as it was wanting to give Skutch the one-on-one he wanted. "Still fighting dirty, Zim?" he grumbled as he lifted his head.

As he stood, he swept his long, red-orange bangs to the side, revealing to me the Elite symbol that was marked on his forehead. Every Irken in the Elite Army had to wear that symbol, and generally did so with pride: it was a modification of the Irken Empirical symbol, which itself was a silhouette of an Irken—Tallest, it was widely accepted—head; the Elite symbol differed in that it looked roughly like a downward-pointing arrow, or two overlaid triangles, with a space between the two so that the bottom larger point could extend upward and emulate Irken antennae. The color of the symbol, from regime to regime, changed depending on the color of the Elite Commander's eyes.

Skutch's symbol was red. Tak's eyes, when Irken, were purple.

"This is still yours, y'know," Skutch mocked me. Red, for the Elite Commander's eyes. For mine. He let his bangs fall over the symbol, and took up his _manriki_ in both hands again. There were marks on his palms, I noticed, from the different grips he had on his weapons. They were well-used. Invader Skutch really was in it for the thrill of the fight—no wonder he'd fallen to Tak so easily. She promised a good fight, and she delivered.

Skutch's hands, though, while marked, did not seem heavily calloused. Mine were. Pretty terribly. I could feel how rough or how smooth a surface was, as I was sure he could as well, but by applying myself to earn that soul, I was inviting damage to myself that Irkens couldn't fully experience. There was a difference between Irken vanity and human vanity. And there was no such thing as Irken modesty. If anything, Skutch probably wanted scars to show his victories.

Fine, then.

"I'm not your Elite Commander!" I shouted. That was all I gave him before I moved forward.

I came down at him, aiming for his shoulder, from my right. Skutch blocked my arm with a jab from his left elbow, then swung for a punch with his right hand. Accentuated by the chain of his weapon, his fist cuffed me across the face, which stung like a harsh frost and made my blood rush a tempest through my head. Coming down off of that was a little difficult—my head was spinning as I was recovering, and Skutch did not waste the opportunity to spin and whip that chain over my right arm.

It hit my existing wound at the opposite diagonal from which it ran, and I couldn't even hear myself cry out, it sparked such a jolt of pain. It called forth a flash—while I was still conscious, I wondered if it was one the PAK chose specifically for me to see in that moment:

_Devastis. Miyuki's reign. Skutch was a prodigy in the Elite. The youngest soldier, but one of the best. I could recognize his talents, but would not let him advance. I could see his determination in his skill, but he tried too hard. His moves were often predictable. _

_ I watched the Elite spar against one another in an isolated dome, built for such purposes. There were only four that interested me, and those currently locked in battle were two of them. Skutch, and Red. The two were a good match, if only because their styles were similar. Both attacked without consequence. That much was important, in the Elite. Red preferred lasers; Skutch preferred steel. When Skutch rushed forward, weapon in the shape of a traditional kairedon blade, Red feinted and shot—_

I needed to attack long-distance. When I snapped my eyes open, that was all I tried to take away from that irritating flash. Against Skutch, I either had to figure out a way to attack from a distance, or be prepared to take more hits like that and get in one good close-range strike here and there. Well, what did I have? Just that pair of what were apparently called _sairedon._ Which Skutch was now glaring at with discontent.

"What?" I spat, confident that I hadn't lost much time in my latest blackout.

"Your fuckin' weapons," he snarled.

"What about them?"

Skutch spat out onto the ground, then swung his _manriki_ around, out to his right, a few times, before crossing it in front of his body, flipping it around his back and then whipping it forward, the chain curled around his right forearm as the heavy, spiked metal ball came shooting toward me. Even though I could almost see the attack coming, I took the hit. That was it. Skutch's skill was half in execution, half in delivery. Shit, he really was good. Very meticulous. "You don't even know what they're capable of, do you?" he said in response to my last inquiry, to accompany his strike.

The _manriki's_ weight cut into my left side a little, but I feinted just enough to avoid a full hit. Which didn't matter much to the Invader; he pulled the chain back, let it slack from the lengths he had gathered in his left hand, then bent down over his knees and stepped down on the chain, sending the ball flying upward. It hit me hard in the chest, and I choked on my breath, but refused to let myself fall from that. My knees shook for a moment as Skutch withdrew his weapon.

Then, very casually, Skutch gathered the full chain and walked up to me and punched me in the chest, which finally did knock off my balance. I stumbled back a few paces, but found a good opening if I did drop to my knees, so I let myself fall, allowing him the satisfaction of thinking he'd knocked me down, but I pressed my hands down flat on the hard ground and whipped my right leg around in front of me to trip him.

Skutch fell forward and over my back, so I threw him by sitting up quick and forcing both elbows back. I spun myself up to standing and didn't give Skutch the time to recover before I rushed back at him, but he shifted his _manriki_ into a long, sturdy, oversized mace, flipped it over his head, and brought it down hard onto the ground in front of him, causing a small tremor and a crack to open up in the brittle rock beneath my feet. I ducked to the side, and as Skutch began to stand, he was holding that Vortian-inspired laser gun again, and shot toward me, calculating which place I was going to move next.

I needed distance attacks, huh?

The only thing I could think to do was hurl one of my _sairedon_ at him, so I flung it as accurately as I could toward his chest, but he caught it by the hilt with his left hand, swung it down, and hurled it right back. I skidded to a halt so that I could grab it without trying to run, and it nicked one of my fingers just a little, just enough to draw a little bit of blood, but nothing that wouldn't stop after a minute.

While I was stopped, though, and getting a handle back on each of the weapons, Skutch switched back to his _manriki,_ charged forward, looped the chain around both of his hands making an enclosed circle between them, and brought the chain down over my head. When he tightened his grip, my neck was caught; he was choking me.

"How d'you like that, Zim?" my opponent sneered.

"Skutch?"

"What?"

"You're an idiot."

I twirled my _sairedon_ out to their longer lengths, and even the action of that cut into his sides. Skutch winced, and I drove the edges of the blades in a little deeper. So Skutch tightened the chain around my neck. And we were at a standstill. If I cut any harder, he'd choke harder, and vice versa. "Right back at you," he commented. "Like I said, Zim: you still fight dirty."

"Stop choking me," I demanded.

"Huh. Right. Guess what, by the way..." He tightened his grip, so I drove the blades in a little further. "Guess who's barely even been scratched? You fight dirty, but you can't finish it, can you?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" My neck was burning, as were my lungs for want of oxygen, but I gasped in a deep breath to keep myself going.

"Nice try," said Skutch. "Fight like you wanna kill me, or this isn't gonna be worth it."

"Why would I want to kill you?" Honestly, I didn't want to necessarily have to kill anyone. It didn't matter if he or she was an enemy. I was pretty damn sure the only exception I'd make would be for Tak. Skutch gave me plenty of reason to hate the shit out of him, but I didn't want him dead. I'd rather have him alive for answers, because he must have been full of them. Full of information on Tak. I didn't kill. I took prisoners.

_"And that is exactly where you're falling behind."_

"Shut up," I muttered to the PAK.

"I didn't say anything," Skutch said. At least his confusion got him to ease up on his hold of the chain. It wasn't much, but it was enough. I pulled my blades back and drilled my knee up into Skutch's stomach. "Mother_fucker!"_ he shouted in retaliation, easing his own grip. I shrugged my shoulders up to work my head out of the chain noose, and took a few steps back. Skutch, infuriated, straightened himself and hollered at me, "You've got a lot of fuckin' nerve, you know that?"

"Quit swearing," I asked, "it's distracting."

"Shut up."

"What do you _want,_ Skutch?" I demanded.

"I told you last time! Don't make this any more difficult than it has to be. It's my mission to bring you back." Oh. There it was. Skutch shot me an awful scowl, and continued on, "We're a Commander-less Elite. Tallest Tak has been saving the position, you know."

"I thought you and Skoodge were in charge."

"Temporarily. We need you." To emphasize his statement, Skutch pointed an almost accusatory index finger forward at me. "You were the best."

I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to hear it, but I hesitated to attack. My PAK was insultingly silent. It just whirred there in me, waiting for a more inopportune moment to butt in and try to control my pattern of thought. I'd been having quite a time with that thing. It infiltrated my dreams as much as it did my waking life. Now it had started a countdown, but it wouldn't tell me how long that was going to take. It had some kind of hold on the laceration on my arm, to the point that it was killing me, molecule by molecule.

Whatever kind of thought was trapped in that PAK, from the Elite Commander I'd been and refused to remember... whatever was in there, it didn't think very highly of anyone or anything. Irken or not, it didn't matter. The PAK is inarguably the deadliest part of any Irken, and this one in particular had a pretty solid killer instinct. I didn't know if it would kill Skutch if given the chance. I didn't want to kill my opponent, just... beat him. The PAK was stronger... what would happen if I just... listened? No, that wouldn't work. I'd kill if I listened. Not just kill, I'd probably really do some things that would push me past repair. But still... wait...

Shit. _Are you really being silent,_ I tried to ask it, _or are you making me think what you want without talking now?_

_ "Why don't we stop with this 'you' or 'I,' host? How does 'we' sound?"_

_ Disturbing. No deal._

"You've got a choice," Skutch persisted, echoing my internal arguments. "Remember it all, or forget everything. Either way, I need an answer _today."_

"Last time, you said you'd kill me," I reminded him. I couldn't hear whatever it was he said in response, though, since one of his sentences stabbed back into my head: _remember it all or forget everything. _Tak had said that exact same thing to me during our semi-partnership on the _Massive._

"Quit being difficult!" Skutch shouted. "You've got to suck it up and just know that our way is better! You're weak right now, but you've still got promise. Quit playing human now and—"

"Are those your words," I finally challenged him, "or Tak's?"

Skutch's cloudy blue eyes went wide, but he narrowed them a moment later. "The hell do you mean by that?" he snarled.

"Did you go into it willingly," I wondered, "or are you just not noticing? Why are you fighting for Tak, Skutch?"

"Because she's the Tallest," was his answer.

"And that doesn't bother you?"

"No."

"So you'll just blindly fight and spew her words at me and everyone in this Corporation because she's your leader right now?" I said, hoping to call him on his idiocy for following her at all.

"I'm not fighting _blindly,_ asshole, I'm—"

"That's another thing," I interrupted before he could keep going. This was something that had been grinding into me for a little while. "Watch your mouth. Honestly." Oddly enough, I felt myself laugh. "Hey, if you chose to switch over and team with us, I'm sure you'd actually fit in pretty easily. I hear a lot of that language coming from people the ages we look..."

"Who says I wanna fit in? I mean, I'm not switching to fight with you!" Skutch roared. "That's ridiculous! Tak is the Tallest, and I'm following her, got that? You're an idiot, so you're following what's-his-name, who's no better than that stupid Tallest Red!"

"Do _you_ hate Red, or does Tak?_"_ I said, just to prod it further.

"NO! YES! SHUT UP!" Skutch whipped his _manriki_ toward me, but with none of the grace and practice he had been earlier.

"Oho, so _now_ who're you fighting?" I smirked, backing easily out of the way. "Yourself?"

"SHUT UP!" Skutch's eyes flared wide open. I'd found a weak spot. "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Skutch _was_ an intriguing opponent. I couldn't wait to really unearth his aim.

"What now?" I challenged.

"Now? Now I just wanna fucking _kill you!"_ Well. At least he'd stopped spewing out Tak's agenda all over the place. Things could have gotten very interesting right there...

...had Tak's robot not intervened.

"This stops," said MiMi.

I recognized her voice from the Incident. She'd been posing as Miyuki on a bugged computer program that had started running on Gaz's laptop, and up until the last second, she'd had me convinced. MiMi was such an interesting case. GIR was on the odd side of the Standard-issue Information Retrieval units that Irken Tallest had been giving out to Invaders and Elites for ages, and MiMi was on another level entirely. There were generations of SIRs just as there were generations of PAKs, though the distribution was more even. While Original PAKs could still be spotted here and there, despite the Brains' attempts at destroying the old genes in the Irken birthing pool, SIRs were made in the same machine each time, and had absolutely no organic attachments. Because of that, they were considered lesser than Irkens; just as functional and just as much a piece of equipment as a mech or ship.

GIR and MiMi, though... kind of had personalities. Which was strange. I didn't really know much about the history of SIR generations, but something about the way Skutch was now glaring at MiMi told me that he did. Damn. Skutch really was a wealth of Irken information. He'd been a prodigy in the Elite. He was juvenile as hell, but he was intelligent. He was probably arrogant and deliberately an asshole _because_ he knew so much. After all, this was a guy who just plain fought his way as high up as he could go. I remembered that from our interactions on the _Massive._ If a situation didn't promise him another rung up on the ladder he was trying to climb, he would have no part in it. He'd just wait for a better situation to come along. And he'd leave others in the dust once he got what he wanted.

He did not want MiMi there, that much was clear. I was starting to wonder even more, now, just how much of Skutch's mind was under Tak's control. Obviously, he'd been washed into delivering her morals as if they were on a teleprompter behind me, but I saw a lot of that same arrogance and will to move forward. Then again, his natural personality probably contributed a lot to how he'd fallen to Tak in the first place...

"What are you doing here?" Skutch growled at MiMi.

"The Tallest has a special request," said the robot. Her eyes still flashed red with every syllable she spoke.

"No fucking way." It wasn't surprise with which he spoke. It was defiance.

It was something I could use against him.

"Leave me alone, MiMi," Skutch snapped at the robot. "Let me do my own damn mission."

MiMi was unaffected by his attempt at a command, as evidenced by her swift execution of what I was sure was an order. She held out her right arm, and the hand itself shot forward as a claw extension, which I first thought was heading toward Skutch, but instead latched onto me. "Get off!" I shouted at her, but MiMi narrowed her flat red eyes at me, indicating that that was simply not an option.

"Oh, no you fuckin' don't, you stupid robot," Skutch growled. "We agreed, he's _mine_ because—"

"Plans change," MiMi said blankly. "My mistress wants her target."

"FUCKING ROBOT!" Skutch was furious, but something about the way MiMi turned her head fully round on her little metal shoulders made him hesitate to attack her. The robot tightened her claw's grip on my grey uniform jacket, but I didn't look at her. I was interested in how Skutch was reacting. More and more, the idea of not just capturing him but trying to get him to switch sides was becoming a priority. He looked like he was struggling with doubt. If I was pulled away from a fight with him, he'd probably shake right out of it, and come back into the fight under full Tak control again, but at least I knew that words could beat him down much better than weapons could. As long as I could dodge whatever he threw at me, I could talk him down. "Okay, Tak can have him for right now," the Invader conceded, "but _I finish it! You got that?"_

MiMi did not answer. My vision went blurry, and I felt that pressured rush against my ears, that push against my entire body, and then I stood on grass again, back on the complex's side of the lake.

"Well, well!" And there was Tak's voice, coming from behind me. MiMi let go, and rushed in a blur to where the unrightfully instated Tallest stood. I straightened myself slowly, took in a deep breath, and turned to face her. The skintight clothes that hugged her human hologram were indication not only of a bad sense of what to wear for a fight, but indication that she wasn't holding back any pride. Strapped to her exposed thighs were two holsters; each held a dagger and a pistol, but she did not draw any of them. What a show-off. "Nice to see you again, Zim."

"Been a while," I said in return. Tak smirked. Around her neck, she wore that Talisman gem, the Cabochon. It let off its soft pale glow, taunting anyone who looked at it with its presence. "So you waited till September," I continued, when Tak had nothing else to say. "What's your deal, Tak? What do you want, and why the wait?"

Tak pretended to be examining her nails. "I wanted my soldiers to have a better challenge this time," was her blunt answer. Her indigo eyes shifted to look at me again, and her lips ticked up into a forced smile. "How are things moving along for you?"

"I was unaware that this was a question and answer session," I said firmly back.

"Oh, Zim, you don't want to fight me," Tak laughed. "Talking is so much easier."

"Don't I?"

Tak scowled, and took a few steps forward, looking me up and down with each step. She then circled me, looking unimpressed with everything about my appearance. "How far along are you, I asked," she spat out, her voice like poison.

"In what?"

Tak placed her right hand on my back.

So I spun around and punched her, hard, in the face. Tak cried out and stumbled back, giving me enough time to sheath my two blades and go at her with my fists again. I caught her by the hard-to-grasp collar and pulled up on it with my left hand while I cracked down on her shoulder with my right elbow. The hit probably would have dislodged any human's shoulder, but Tak was sturdier than that. I grabbed her around the head and threw her to the side, directly into a small tree that I'd noticed nearby.

MiMi had taken me out to one of the areas far past the horseshoe of buildings, still within Corporation jurisdiction. We were near to the woods, and a few trees were scattered here and there, but did not thicken in number and density until one went past the gate that was still several yards behind us.

Tak scowled and righted herself, then held out her left hand and shot a blast of energy from it, directly toward me. It was deflected before it got two feet from my face. "Oh, you stupid girl!" Tak complained at the newcomer to the fight.

I grinned; I couldn't help myself. Even though it was strange to know that she'd been the one to fire the blast, I was pretty damn excited by the fact that Gaz had just returned all of my promises to protect her. She rushed over to stand beside me, and kept her eyes on Tak. "Thanks," I got out quickly, before Tak could start things up again.

"I owed you," Gaz said, grinning slightly. Whispering, she added, "I still do." She fiddled with her ring somewhat. Good thing she was wearing that, too help keep her safe. But hopefully we could have a little more of a discussion about that at some point.

"Every single one of you is a threat to the Empire," Tak snarled at the two of us. "You two, your brother," she added, pointing to Gaz, "your brother's—whatever the hell she is—"

"Dib's girlfriend?" Gaz guessed.

"Your brother has as much potential as this one here does," Tak growled, now focusing her attention on me and ignoring any further mention of Dib or Lex. "Neither one of you is smart enough to see that! Do you have any idea how great you could be?"

"Tak, I told you," I said, "I'm not interested in questions and answers right now!"

"Then just answer my first one! How are things _progressing,_ Zim?"

"What's she talking about?" Gaz wondered.

"MiMi!" Tak screamed.

A second later, Gaz was being pulled off to the side by that long metal claw of MiMi's. Two against two, now, I guessed. MiMi had only really ever fought GIR before, now that I thought of it. A fight between a human and a diminutive robot seemed like an easy call—until MiMi dragged Gaz away with that extended arm; the arm retracted, and MiMi's image grew hazy, the way it always did when she shifted into the cat hologram Tak had devised for her years ago... only this time, there was no cat. Just like most of the rest of the Elite soldiers, MiMi herself had a human hologram.

Her uniform mimicked Tak's. Her hair was long and black, tied into two high pigtails, falling in long streams down her back; since no human ears could be seen on her head, I assumed that the pigtails were to emulate the cat ears of her other hologram. On each of her wrists was an encircling metal fixture, attached to which were a metal exoskeleton—her actual robotic hands; the right one could probably still extend.

"What the hell?" Gaz exclaimed. She wrapped her hands around MiMi's neck, revealing it to be solid as Tak's own hologram during the Incident had been, and her palms glowed purple. A static shock bolted between Gaz's hands into MiMi's neck, but, robot she was, she simply sparked and recovered... the image of her neck righted itself in seconds.

"Gaz!" I shouted over.

"No, no, no, Zim, you're mine," Tak said, going for a strike against me. I blocked her quickly and feinted back to reach for my weapons. Tak kicked my left hand away before my palm could make contact with the hilt of my _sairedon,_ but I grabbed the one in my right hand and struck down toward Tak's exposed PAK. She whirled around and caught my arm before I could make any contact, then delivered a harsh kick up to my chest.

I winced back and grabbed out my second weapon, but Tak attempted again, "How are things coming?"

"I'm not your Goddamn experiment!" I shouted. Ugh, provoke me a little more, and I'd be swearing more than Skutch. "It'd be great if you would just spell things out, so I know _exactly _how much to hate you right now."

"You're wearing the wrong uniform," Tak scowled. "Listen up, Zim, I gave you that human body as an experiment and as a favor. But now that you're waking up, there's so much more I need from you. Do you understand? Wrong. Uniform."

"Oh, jeez," I commented. "Everyone's pointing out my uniform like it's a big freaking surprise!" Tak glared at me, unamused. "And what are you going on about, me waking up? I woke up a long time go, when you turned me human. You know I want to live here, you know this is what I want," I attacked, holding my ground. "Besides, what else did you think might happen to me? You and I have never been on the same side, so why would I—"

"That's a laugh!" Tak snapped at me. "Watch the way you use the word 'never,' Zim. Watch every step you take and every word you say." With a quick move, what Dib and Gaz called a 'surge,' Tak was directly in front of me. Her human guise set her at a couple inches taller than Gaz... which was odd, since I was pretty sure even Skutch had a little height on her. Now, why the hell would she allow her new Elite leader to be slightly taller than she herself, the Tallest?

Tak reached both hands up to grab either side of my face, brushing her fingertips along the line of my jaw. I'd almost never felt so damned uncomfortable. It was awful; disorienting; like being arachnophobic and covered with spiders. Tak wasn't my Fear, was she? How could I fear a person I could have sworn would have been a better embodiment of Hate than Lard Nar? I hated her. I did not fear her, I despised her.

"Let go of me," I demanded. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Your eyes are shifting," Tak grinned.

"Get the _hell off of me!"_ I shouted, shoving my left blade directly into her ribs. She didn't even move then, which was disturbing to say the least. Her eyes flared wide and her grin spread broadly. Her fingers dug in deeper until her nails—her human temp even had hard as hell _nails—_scratched into my skin.

She began to laugh. "That can't kill me!" she shrieked. "But that's half of it, isn't it?" Her eyes flickered, but I ignored the buzz. "That's half of _it!"_ Laughing wildly, she let go of my face and grabbed me in by the collar of my uniform to cry out, "Where's the other half, Zim? Cut me again with that one and we'll see how long this game keeps going!"

"Game's over." Tak was yanked back away from me, and, judging from the voice, I knew that this was going to be an interesting fight.

I stepped back, while Tak whirled to oppose the second newcomer to the fight. Though she had a few inches on him, Ira Murasaki hurled her over his head, bringing her down hard onto her back. "Hope you don't mind," Ira said, calm under pressure, "but I'd like to step in for a minute." Before Tak could sit up, Ira drew his _katana_ and brought it down over her head. Tak rolled at the last second, so that he only cut into her hair, which grew right back the second she got up onto her knees.

Ira's sharp purple eyes widened when he noticed that, but he shook himself out of whatever that dawning thought had been, and sheathed his sword. Tak, however, paused for a moment. "You?" she said. She then tilted her head back to laugh. "You! I should have known! Oh, this is too good!"

"Shut up," Ira said, running at her. He grabbed her neck, choking her off in the middle of her laugh.

As Ira pulled her back and struck twice, I rushed backwards, giving him room and trying to figure out where MiMi had gone off to, since her fight with Gaz had apparently come to an abrupt end. But for now, we weren't about to intrude. Ira had plenty of reason to want to fight her on his own, I figured, and I didn't want to step on anyone's pride by interfering in a fight. "How are you getting on, here on this miserable planet, then, Purple?" Tak sneered.

Ira slid back into a crouched position, and when Tak threw herself at him, he grabbed her extended hand and flipped her, turning to kick her into the ground only a second after. He pulled her up and threw her to the side, striking repeatedly at her midriff before knocking her down again. He slammed a foot down on her neck and spoke to her coldly.

"As I was a resident of this planet for twenty-seven years, I've been 'getting along' just fine," he said in response to her previous question. Tak's eyes widened. "I see your PAK's memories are still being clouded to make you believe I've been always at Red's side."

He drew her up again and tossed her forward, letting her make a move before he blocked her and struck her hard with an upper cut. Before she could fall he struck her again, then hauled her in by the collar, pulling her down just enough so she was at his eye level.

"I've always hated machines," he went on. "That's all any of you Irkens are. Why you would want to stop the Prophecy from becoming reality, I don't believe I'll ever know, but I won't trouble myself with that. You're a living machine, and as such, I should feel no sympathy in destroying you!"

As he raised a fist to strike again, Red rushed up behind him and caught his wrist. Ira gasped and looked up over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing. "What are you doing?" he shouted at Red.

Gaz, who'd joined me in watching the scuffle between Ira and Tak, were equally confused at this point. Clearly, Red had stated that he wanted his chance to go against Tak. Ira probably wanted just as much of a 'word' with her as his forced partner, but something about Red's quickness in prying Ira off of everyone's mutual opponent was interesting to say the least.

Calmly, Red let go of Ira and walked around to restrain Tak, who did not put up a fight. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying this, now. Ira snorted out of contempt and straightened, smoothing down his shirt, then tossing his hair, looking away from Red. "I thought you would have wanted me to destroy her," he said. "Then you'd become the Tallest again, and I'd have no choice but to go with you."

"Machines, are we?" was all Red spoke in reply. His voice was low and hollow, sounding as though he had truly been hurt.

Ira's eyes widened. "Red, I—"

"You don't need another intentional murder on your record, Ira," Red interrupted. "You two," he said to me and Gaz, "get out of here. This is just between me, Ira and Tak." Turning back to look at Ira, he added, "I'm really disappointed in the way you've been handling things."

"Red, when I said that, I—"

"You say too much," Red warned before Ira could finish, "and it's going to cost you."

"God, Red, you're such a jerk!" Gaz shouted at him. "Shut the hell up for once!"

"Get—_out of here,"_ Red hissed over at us again.

"NO."

"Don't make me break my agreement with your stubborn brother, kid!" the true Tallest roared. "You really have no idea what you'd be fucking with if you stayed here, all right?"

And, just my luck, I didn't even get to see through the end of that heated verbal argument. At just that moment, I felt a hand on my shoulder. "I think Tak's done with you," I heard Skutch say, "but we weren't finished."

"Wait—" I tried.

Too late.

I was back on the other side of the lake. Locked in a battle with a selfish Invader while everyone I knew was at a crossroads, either with each other, or with Tak.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Notes:**

This one's a little rapid and slightly confusing, I admit, but this Invasion's far from being over. ^^ The chapter title can also be applied to Skutch's proficiency in profanity. D: (I get way too amused by how juvenile he is, honestly; gah...)

I love how one of the things that keeps happening as I edit this story is that the characters start calling me on the things that annoy them. XD Skutch swears. A _lot._ So Zim's gonna call him on it. Red's a jerk? Gaz calls him on it. I don't know. It's just fun, the way these guys are completely in control, not me. ^^; (If that makes any sense.)

And… Zim! The guy is really going through a lot. I hope everyone caught that last week was a double post. I actually really, really like writing his PAK, too. It's weird, though, because sometimes I treat them like the same person, and sometimes I don't… :3 "Half of 'it'." We'll learn the other half soon...!

Sorry for the single post this week, but next week should be two! Woo! I'm so excited to keep plugging through Part Three… More Membrane next week; I loved reading the reviews on his return last week! : D He's an odd guy, but pretty soon he'll get a chance to have himself heard…(I really do have to watch how many times I reference things that are going to/might happen, though, but it's all out of love for this part; it's just really all the raw meat of the story in part 3…)

Thank you so much for reading! ^^ See you next **Saturday, January 21****st****!** :3

~Jizena

– – –


	20. Second Invasion 4: Provoked

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**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Gaz's Records_

"Get out of here, I said. Don't make me tell you again."

Growing up, I had decided that I hated a lot of things. I hated the norm, for one, so I didn't conform to it. I hated rules, so I didn't abide by them. I hated school, so I drowned out my lectures. I hated sunlight, so I stayed out of it. I hated love, so for the longest time, I chose not to believe in it. But more than anything, more than anything, I hated people. The ones who chose the norm, who made the rules, who ran the school and who said that sunlight would be good for my skin. The ones who said that love was real. I hated people. Because I hated the cards I'd been dealt in the parent division. Eventually, I'd started coming around. I had family: Dib. I had, well, okay, I had friends: Zim, Lex, and, now that I realized it, Tenn. The people around here were different. Maybe I was a little more different than they were—the whole Miyuki thing and all—but at least they were people slightly worth being around.

Tallest Red of the Irken Empire did, in my opinion and especially on the day of Tak's second Invasion, not count as a person. I hated him, and I had every reason to hate him. He was just like the demonizations of people I'd had in my head for so long. Selfish, an idiot, and completely, utterly, irreparably self-serving. He was a tyrant. An egomaniac. He looked human enough right now; okay, fine. He'd developed human habits, he slept, ate, drank too much coffee and on one occasion I even saw Agent Cthulhu give him a cigarette.

But he wasn't human. And I'd almost forgotten that, until that afternoon. Until I saw his hungry red eyes fall on the gem around his usurper's neck. Until he began yelling at Ira Murasaki after a touchy comment about Irkens being machines.

Tak was soaking it in like crazy. She was crazy, but that's beside the point. Tak thrived on conflict; she always had. She was at the top of the hate pile; Red was just a very, very close second at the moment. She was letting herself be subdued by him, which was putting me off. Because when Tak started playing games, things could take a turn for the worst, or at least for a kind of weirdness nobody could call. Red and Tak were sure to be an interesting match in a real fight; I wasn't sure if I necessarily wanted to watch it. And then there was Ira, stuck in the middle. And Red telling me to get the hell out of there.

I didn't appreciate being told what to do. I can't think of anyone who really does. Well, except maybe mindless Irken drones. Which was what Red was used to dealing with, so I suppose in a twisted way it made sense that he treated _everyone_ like that, but me? No. Ira? No. Not gonna stand for that. He'd even been yelling at Zim like that, too. Really not okay.

"Why not be a good girl," Tak sneered at me, from where she let herself be captive in Red's tightly clenched hands, "and do what you're told?"

"Where do you get off?" I snapped at her. "Why'd you let yourself get caught?"

"LEAVE!" Red shouted. He turned toward me, his eyes burning such a fierce red I thought they could really incinerate something. "You don't listen! None of you humans listen. Especially you," he spat at Ira. "I have got so much to say to you."

"So say it," Ira challenged him, folding his arms in defiance. "I've been listening for eleven years to your... nonsense," he said, censoring himself at the last second, "so I might as well go for more. I have to anyway."

I shot him a look in terror. "Ira, what're you talking about?" I wondered.

"Well, I—"

"Go ahead!" Red shouted. "Go on, tell her just how screwed you are. You know it and I know it and the Control Brains know it. As long as secrets are being told, _go ahead._ Tell her why you're working for me. Tell her what you did. Tell her why you're serving your sentence to _machines like me!"_

"Red, shut up!" Ira hollered at him. Tak tilted her head back and laughed. "You, too! Look, you have your opinions on humans, I have mine on Irkens, okay? Of course you aren't completely a mach—"

"This is _beautiful!"_ Tak cried. "This is just—oh, _thank_ you, this is more than I ever could have hoped for!"

That proclaimed, she flipped herself out of Red's grasp and regained her feet. In a black blur, MiMi was at her feet in a cat hologram again, and then, with a spin, there the robot stood in human guise again. I knew that hologram. It was changed a little, but the face was the same, the stance was the same. She wasn't just any hologram, she was an avatar meant to taunt me, Dib and Zim... possibly even GIR. I'd played her before, in a video game. The video game _Warped, _which MiMi had somehow strategically worked into my hands during the time warp Incident. That game had kept on giving me clues that eventually led us to the end of the Incident, and one of the playable characters had been called MiMi. Pigtails had replaced the cat ears in the translation from character to solid hologram, but this was just one more piece. Whatever she was trying to prove, I wasn't sure if I wanted to find out.

Tak outstretched her arms and shouted, "This is the new regime!" She pointed one long finger at me and added, "You may think you've got something by inheritance rights, but I assure you, as long as this Cabochon is in my possession, the Empire is mine."

Red growled and cracked his knuckles, then said, "Which is exactly why I'm going to take it from you."

"Oh, no, I rather like you as a human," Tak said. Acting as always like she had the main say in a matter. MiMi remained motionless, awaiting orders. "And as for your partner, now that's an interesting story."

"I still don't want you in control," Ira scowled at her. "I think it would be kind of nice if Irkens could start thinking for themselves."

"Ira, would you _shut up?"_ Red lashed out. "You keep filling my head with just... words, just words, just shut _up."_

"Oh, I quite agree," Tak added. "Now, as you are technically no threat to me, Purple or whatever your name is, I can't say I care, I'll ask that you and Miyuki's spawn here scatter away and leave the real fight to us."

"What _is_ the 'real fight?'" I demanded.

"Simple," Tak grinned. "I'm going to kill this Tallest, and then I'm going to kill you. This one first, though. He's always in my way."

"Tak—" I started.

"And to keep you distracted, here." Her gem glowed, and she snapped her fingers above her head. "Skoodge, I need your assistance with something."

No sooner had she spoken than her second in command appeared not far behind her. MiMi glanced over her shoulder at the squat Invader in human guise, then darted away, back toward the battle already in place closer to the buildings. "New assignment," Tak said to the Invader.

"Yes?" he asked hungrily.

"First round, just as you did last time. Take a squad if you need to." Smirking at me, she completed, "Kill the human this girl's brother has latched himself onto. Just remember, he's the one I really want alive."

Skoodge nodded with a terrible grin, and Ira and I cried out at once, "Lex?"

"Oh, crap, oh, crap," I muttered under my breath. "Ira, I'm sorry, I do have to go. Shit. Dib was having trouble earlier, and..."

"Trouble?" Ira wondered.

"PAK—" I was stammering, but I couldn't even think of what kind of mental damage could happen to my brother if the girl he'd _actually_ started dating would be the next one Skoodge went after. And, hell, no, dammit, no, I wasn't about to sit back and assume things might turn out okay when I could have the chance to go warn one of the only friends I'd ever had that she was being targeted. "Dib had a PAK, he—Tak did it, she made him get all..."

"It's okay," said Ira, placing a hand on my back gently, the way I assume a father would. "Come on, let's you and me go take care of—"

I shook my head. "That's what Tak wants!" I hollered over at her, "You bitch! You conniving, horrible bitch! You sink so low, you fight so stupidly dirty, you—"

"Go on, now," Tak smirked, waving a hand in the direction of the buildings.

"Damn you," I muttered. I turned to Red, and said, gathering my pride, "I really don't like you, but I hate her worse. Do something awful to her. I don't care what."

"Oh, I will," Red answered. "But it's gonna be for me."

"Fine," I grumbled. Then, before I could second-guess myself, I rushed off in the direction of the main buildings.

It wasn't long until I felt the wind change beside me. I didn't even have to take a look to know that Ira had caught up with me.

"Ira—"

"Don't say it." So I didn't. "Red can deal. I'll yell at him later."

"You sure? Why stick with me rather than help him fight off Tak?"

"He needs to blow off steam, and two of us need to do this," he said. "I'll go find your brother, all right? You go look for Lex. That way, one of us will be in the right place at the right time."

"Dib wants to kill Skoodge," I reminded Ira.

"I know," he said. "I respect that. He isn't easy to kill, believe me I've tried before, but I'll give Dib that; he deserves it."

"You really hate Irkens, don't you?" I asked him.

Ira pressed his lips tightly together as he let himself get lost in thought, and then he shook his head slightly. "I just hate a lot of the actions they take," he told me. "What I hate is the system. Red could actually be a pretty good leader if he didn't have the Brains always telling him what to do. I'm sure Miyuki was actually a fairly good leader, though she fell to restrictions as well. It's the stupid Invasions that bother me. It's the rigidity of the society. The problem with Irkens isn't that they _are_ machines, Gaz... it's that they have _chosen_ to be. They've chosen to have no free will. To be living weapons. I wouldn't wish that on any living thing. So I'll fight from the inside or out if I need to. Mostly, though, I'm tired of them. I just want to come home."

"You can," I said, hoping I sounded reassuring enough. "Ira, you can come home."

He smiled a little, and, as we slowed our pace upon approaching the main struggle, he said, "Thank you. I'm glad you'd be here, in case I did manage it. I'd love it if she could be there, too."

"Who's she?" I wondered.

Ira grinned. "The woman I wanted to marry."

A sting hit my chest. Right. I felt like he must have mentioned her before, or at least I heard about her in passing. As Ira and I parted ways after that, I started giving that kind of thing some thought. Off I was going to warn Lex about Skoodge before he could surprise her with an attack. She'd become really close and really special to Dib lately; I didn't know exactly how far their relationship had taken them, but they were close and having a girlfriend made Dib happy. Having Zim around made me happy, too...

I twisted the ring around on my finger as I ran. Then grabbed out my daggers to cut down an Irken in my way. Then started thinking about it again.

Um.

Why not?

Right?

I knew he wouldn't hurt me. I liked having him around. Did I actually _love_ him? Well, that was something I was sure I'd figure out. Did Dib love Lex? I had no idea. I was still figuring out that whole love thing for myself. But it wasn't like Zim had given me any reason to doubt that any of the ways he'd been treating me lately were real. I grinned with my own resolve to talk to him about it.

First thing was first though. Save my friend.

Huh.

Amazing, I thought—it was becoming easier and easier to, well... not hate everything. There were the Reds and, worse, Taks of the universe, but really. The rest of these people weren't all that bad. And I really didn't want to have any of them taken away from me.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

I have one more chapter to put up for today's update, but there's still some dialogue I'm re-writing, so I'll be uploading that one later tonight. See you then! :3

~Jizena~

– – –


	21. Second Invasion 5: The Fall

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Dib's Records_

I've been chasing ghosts since I was a little kid. Vampires. Aliens. (Hahaha.) Chupacabras, yetis, sentient ooze, mutant hamsters, you name it. I'm the son of an Irken Tallest. But the single most surreal event of my life was fighting side by side with my own father. Figure that one out. I honest to God (or whatever) cannot think of anything stranger, especially any time prior to the day of that particular attempted Invasion.

And not only was Dad fighting right beside me... the guy was _good._ And I mean practiced. After seeing what Victor Haynsworth and Ira Murasaki could do, as well as Charlotte, Cthulhu and the others from the early days of the Organization, it probably shouldn't have come as much of a surprise, but that was probably how others who, oh, weren't Professor Membrane's offspring were feeling. I actually got caught and almost seriously wounded a couple of times just from having to stop and gawk at whatever Dad was currently doing. I'd never known why the hell he'd needed those electrically-charged gloves. He could have just flipped a stupid light switch or plugged something in, I'd always thought; he didn't need gloves that sparked a current. Then again, a lot of Dad's inventions seemed kind of weird or out of place... but knowing that he'd been inspired by Irken technology for a lot of them, well, that naturally changed some things in my perceptions.

Dad had always been this odd, crazy enigma. Just this... image, more even than a person. This intangible thing, this concept, this suggestion of a human being that I just happened to be related to. Professor Membrane was someone who had technically been raising me, but behind the lab coat and goggles was someone who wanted to be a father. He just never was, never tried, never succeeded. Oh, Membrane was a very successful man. Just not at home. Never at home. He had lost himself.

But for the first time ever, I felt like I was finally getting a glance at who he really was. Who my dad had been until over a decade ago. The man once called Charles Mansfield, who had just had a dream with a group of like-minded people to educate the world on the supernatural and paranormal, to fund studies of the unexplained. I wanted to meet that man. I wanted to meet him and call him my father. There was just the issue of attempting to forgive him first. He was well on his way on that battlefield, but there were still a lot of words I needed to hear before I could be satisfied. (Words in the form of eleven years' worth of an apology, for example.)

Damn, though. Who knew the guy had it in him to be such a great fighter? I knew his goggles were equipped with target locks, and man, they worked. I'd see them flash here and there, and he'd turn his head or tick his hand around behind him, blasting out in whichever direction his primary target was, while still knowing exactly where to strike next. No wonder he'd always let Gaz play her video games.

Even factoring in how impressive a lot of his attacks were, there seemed to be something erratic about the way Dad fought. Like there was still something missing. I figured that had something to do with the fact that he was probably highly out of practice in doing such things, but the more he started to read off of the movements, the more we started to blend our skills together, the more fluid and precise his actions became. Huh. Who knew? Professor Membrane, the man who'd always worked alone and insisted upon a preference for it, worked much better with a partner. Meaning I could only imagine what kinds of things he and Miyuki must have tried to do—how much had they fought together? Well, now was no time to wonder, but it would be in the back of my mind for a while.

The damn Irkens just kept on coming. I hadn't come across Skutch or Skoodge yet, and had no idea where Tak herself had disappeared to, but her army was enormous. This was all some kind of ridiculous cat-and-mouse game; I knew it. She'd keep sending her army at me, just to wear me out or get me angry. I was still shaking a little, simply knowing that Tak had had the means to call that PAK out of me. The influence it had had on me was gone, I couldn't feel it whirring or trying to reattach to my brain, but the fact was, it was there. An extra little piece of my own DNA. Latent genes. When I was born, so had that thing been, right inside me. Disgusting to think about, but the truth was there. And it was the source of those blasts I was able to use, and that I used liberally. It served as a reminder of something else, though: for once in my life, I wanted to stick around my father _because_ I knew that he'd defend me. He knew how to cut off the influence, how to keep my mind human. So, from the moment he'd turned up, I hadn't broken from fighting beside him for a second.

But, man, enough was enough. There were almost too many soldiers in Tak's army, all of them with much higher stamina than humans. My complex had no trenches, no strongholds other than buildings. Red had insisted that hand-to-hand, direct combat was best against the Irkens, so that had been part of Zim's defensive strategy that he passed along to our own army, but still. Two against God-knows-how-many was getting kind of rough.

Just as Dad and I were both catching our breath from a long, persistent wave of Elites, I heard more movement behind us. I lifted my head and turned, grabbing out my sword, but another well-formed blade hit the target before I could, and with much better accuracy. I couldn't help but grin. Ira really never held back. He gracefully withdrew his sword from the Irken he'd just cut through the PAK, blocked another behind him with his sheath, then spun to cut the other down, all in an almost poetic span of two breaths. He ticked his head up and grinned, then, sheathing the thin _katana,_ he ducked, and over his back, coming from the spot I'd earlier been facing, sailed a small black arrow, which shot down yet another soldier.

"Thanks," I said as Ira, satisfied that the threats were, for now, gone, began walking toward me.

"Sure thing," he answered.

"...Ira...?"

At that point, I noticed that my father had turned as well. His still stance was the closest I knew I'd get to actually reading his expression: his back had gone completely rigid hands loose at his sides, head very slightly ticked back in what had to have been both shock and doubt. Victor—the one I could thank for that last arrow—approached me on the side while Dad still stood in awe of seeing Ira, and, clicking on the safety of his crossbow, began to say, "Seems that particular wave's nothing more to worry a—_Charles?"_ he interrupted himself.

A split second later, Ira took an alarmed step back, staring up almost half a foot at my father, and yelped, "Oh, my God, you are."

_"Ira?"_ Dad repeated, one hand twitching to start him moving again. "What happened to your voice?"

"What happened to—" started to retaliate. He winced, touched a hand to his throat, then shook his head and started over, "What happened to _you?"_

"Charles, you _fucking idiot,"_ Victor said, storming up to my father and punching his shoulder so he'd be facing him. Dad did turn, and I saw then one of the biggest and worst looks of scrutiny I had ever seen anyone give, let alone Victor, who never seemed to criticize people, especially that harshly. "What are you doing here?"

Dad's stance changed again as he shirked back; he glanced from Victor down to Ira, and the light of his goggles dimmed. For a moment, my heart skipped with the anticipation that he might finally take the damn things off. No such luck... not yet, anyway. But one thing was odd enough about the situation. I'd been hearing so much from Victor, and from Ira, about my father, and how the three of them were, before I was born, even up until the year Gaz turned three. Eleven years is a long time to be apart.

"I'm... helping," Dad answered Victor with some difficulty.

"Are you?" my godfather scoffed. "Now that's interesting. Had to let it fester long enough for it to seem like your own idea?"

"No, I'm... I'm here because of—well, a lot of things. What you said factors in there."

"What, the fact that something more important than your false media exploits had started up?" said Victor, baiting my dad.

Dad nodded. "That, yes. The 'fuck you' helped some, too."

"Glorious. Because it didn't throughout the nineties."

"Okay, woah, woah, woah," Ira cut in. "Pleasure to see you again, good to know you two haven't been _all_ that distant, blah, blah, all that. I'm still... no, really, Charles: what the hell?"

"It's the coat, isn't it?" Dad guessed.

"No, it's those stupid goggles!" Ira shouted up at him. "They were stupid in 1985 and they're stupid now!"

"I can see in the dark—"

"IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE AFTERNOON."

"Target lock."

"Still stupid. Also your hair."

"Fine," Dad relented. "At least I don't wear ribbons."

"You're just jealous," Ira smirked, tightening the ribbon that tied back his hair.

"God, you _did_ clean up," Victor muttered. "Didn't you?"

My father glanced over at me (I'm sure I was gawking pretty impressively at that point... I mean, this was foreign as hell to me, just so much as seeing my dad socialize with anyone who wasn't an image on a floating television monitor; Dad had always seemed to hate people); to the other two, Dad then nodded. "Cleaner than I have been in a long time," he said on almost a whisper.

"Times and people change," Victor said sullenly. "That's what you told me. Still believe that rot?"

"Yes," said my father. His tone was almost alarmingly calm. "Change, and change again."

"It's the only constant in life," Ira shrugged.

"No kidding," Dad sighed.

"Uh, Dad...? Guys...?" I tried to catch their attention. As they'd been reuniting, I noticed a new wave of twenty-four heading our way, half in human guise, while the un-hologramed half marched in front. The three stopped talking and followed my gaze forward. Each and every soldier, dressed in a distressed green uniform, carried a gun of some sort. Some looked like long-barrelled rifles, others were of a pistol-type, still others were incomparable to anything on Earth, and extended the length of any one soldier's forearm. All of them, I could already tell, were laser-powered.

The uniforms the soldiers wore included armor on the shoulders, forearms, and lower legs, but nothing in the middle. Whoever the hell decided that was a good idea was pretty stupid; probably an Irken rather than a Vortian—vanity before functionality, ugh. Plus, all of their PAKs were exposed. You would think that someone would have given then PAK armor. You would think.

Which suddenly led me to believe that a vast majority of Tak's army were suicide squads. Not a single one of them would mind dying for her Empire, and she was proving that by waving them in our faces, just to boast about her numbers. She did not care about casualty. ...Or, there was the possibility that she _did;_ she was just that confident that they'd win over us. That seemed more likely, as I thought about it. Tak was just that damn confident that none of her soldiers would bite it on my Corporation grounds.

Ira took one look at the oncoming battalion and laughed. "A firing squad?" he said.

"What?" Dad wondered.

"She sent a firing squad!" Ira grinned. "That's so stupid. Then again: Irkens, what can you do?" He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted out to the firing squad: "You hear me, idiots? You'd better have a really good plan!"

"Ira, what are you doing?" I yelped at him.

"Oh, wait... oh, darn it!" he then said, his sharp purple eyes widening for a second. He whipped around to look up specifically at me and Victor, then said, "Sorry, I got distracted and completely forgot. Tak sent out another assignment. This really is just to distract us. Crap. Dib, you'd better move."

"What?" I wondered. "Why?"

"Invader Skoodge," Ira warned me. My heart leapt, and my back burned... not from any PAK influence, but rather intentionally from my Meekrob tattoo. I'd kill him. This time, no matter how long it took, I would kill Invader Skoodge. "Tak sent him on another mission. Red's got Tak fighting alone right now—" oh, that couldn't end well— "but she sent Skoodge after Lex."

"WHAT?" Victor and I both roared at once.

The firing squad began their advance, surrounding us on all sides. "For God's sake," Victor muttered. "We've got to fight our way out, then?"

"You two make a run for it," my Dad instructed. I saw Victor blanche, and I was really getting ready to just plain surge step my way right over to my girlfriend... but then remembered that had been the fatal mistake last time. I relented and took up my sword. No waste of abilities. I wasn't going to run out of energy while Skoodge targeted Lex. I was going to kill him, and she wasn't going to incur a single scratch. That's just the way things had to be. "Ira, I trust we'll catch up later, but for now, I guess—"

"You got anything besides those gloves?" Ira wondered. The four of us closed in, until we were all back to back. Victor unlocked the safety of his crossbow and reloaded. My hands tightened around the hilt of my weapon. Only Ira's eyes moved. My back was pressed mostly to my father's, so I couldn't see what he was doing, but I heard him flex the material of his gloves.

"I've got all I need," was his answer.

"On three, the old formation?" Victor guessed.

"God, we all still remember that?" my father almost laughed.

"It's an easy one to remember, Charles; we _did_ have our slightly unimaginative moments."

"I'm the runner?" said Ira.

"Always." Victor grinned, and collected his weapon as he glanced around for proper aim.

"You have far too much faith in me, Victor Haynsworth."

"Only because you always succeed."

"I appreciate that."

The first shot was fired, and my father yelled, "DOWN! AND GO!"

The laser shot, coming from in front of my father, continued its course over us, and shot down the soldier who'd been in front of me. The other Irkens flocked to create more of a wall in the direction Victor and I had to run, so Dad sent out two blasts from his gloves to the space behind me, then stood so that he and Victor were precisely on either side of me. I held my sword horizontally, so that one of the sharp ends of the blade was pointed out, and Ira crouched, preparing to run. "Firing," Victor warned.

Dad and my godfather opened fire; Victor with a well-targeted volley of arrows, and my father with several static bolts from his charged gloves. They started, I noticed, on the outsides of the Irken formation and were working their way in. Ira took the center. Before I could even figure out what they were doing, he rushed forward at an Irken in a hologram only about an inch taller than Ira himself was; one of the riflemen.

Ira shoved his sword down the barrel of the rifle, then wrapped his left arm around the shooter's right, yanked him forward, and cracked the rifleman's ribs over his right knee by yanking down. He dislodged his sword, spun the hologramed Irken around, breaking the soldier's arm in the process, grabbed hold of the gun on either end only to bring it up and crack the Irken's head back with a blow to the chin from the gun's metal chassis. Letting go of the gun, then, he kicked the Elite down to the ground and shoved his _katana_ down through the PAK.

He then ducked as Victor shot an arrow and Dad shot a bolt at two others in hologram standing directly over Ira with their Irken pistols at the ready, while Ira crouched and swept out to take down another three that were fighting as normal, with no added guises. From there, he stood in time to grab the one my father had shot—he'd only grazed the soldier's arm—and flip him over his head. Ira then kicked the solider onto his back and, yet again, went for the PAK.

"Path's clear!" he shouted. "Go!"

I nodded to Victor, who set his crossbow into place on his back as I sheathed my sword, and the two of us broke into a run. "Thanks!" I called back at Ira and my father.

"Catch up with us when you can!" Victor added.

"Unless these stupid things keep distracting us," said Ira, "we'll be right there. With any luck, Gaz has already reached Lex with the news!"

We didn't pay attention to anything around us. Both my godfather and I had only one thing we needed to do. He knew exactly where his daughter had been fighting, so we booked it in that direction. Every several feet or so, we'd have to dodge an attack, but I had enough faith in my own army to know that we didn't need to make any stops. Just as I started to think that this would be a wordless journey, Victor asked, "What got into your father?"

"Believe me," I replied, "I'd love to know."

"God, will anyone ever understand that man?"

"I have no idea, but he saved me, so there's that."

"Well, good for him. That ass."

I almost grinned before I remembered the dire situation. "I'm glad Dad's friends respect him so much," I did have to comment. Victor did show a little tick of a smirk, but we continued on with nothing further to say after that. I could only imagine the kind of clipped conversation Dad and Ira must have been having. After all, for all anyone had ever known, Ira had been dead for a decade. God, I wanted to get this battle over with so I could listen to my dad, and Victor, and Ira—just listen to what they had to say; even if it was more of them insulting each other, I didn't care. Dad's life was fleshing out around me. He was a _person._ And one I did want to get to know.

It was just outside the headquarters building that we finally caught up with my girlfriend. "LEX!" I shouted, rushing over to her. A line of our own army's soldiers were in position around the building, with the international snipers on the roof. Lex turned her head toward me, and as soon as I was close enough, I wrapped my arms around her.

"You almost hit the crossbow," she laughed; I noticed at that point that her weapon was brushing the outside of my leg. "Do be careful."

"Yeah, thanks, yeah, same to you, though," I said, pulling back. I grabbed her shoulders and bent so that my eyes were level with hers. "Are you all right? Where's Gaz? Did my sister find you? Ira said she might."

"She did," Lex nodded, looking nervous, "but someone came from nowhere and dragged her off to another fight. I heard her call the attacker MiMi, so—"

"Shit..." I muttered under my breath. Gaz could handle that, though. MiMi, I was confident, was the perfect fit to the cat suggested with her usual hologram: she liked the thrill of the hunt; she preferred playing more than the actual kill. Gaz was the right opponent for that kind of mentality. As soon as we took care of Skoodge, though, I'd have to find my sister.

That was all Tak's design, too, wasn't it? Spread things out. Make the fight look random. No structure, just localized targets... so that she could zero in on her own kills and playthings. Right now, her opponent was Red. He'd been wanting a fight with her—so dammit, I thought, he'd better win. And, you know, stay on our side after that, and everything.

"I've not seen that Invader Skoodge yet," Lex assured me and her father. "Why would he target me?"

"To get to me, I'm sure," I muttered.

Lex shivered. "Well, this battalion here has been doing a fine job keeping this building untouched," she told us. "I've stayed here for the most part, though I was up on the roof for a bit, as well... there doesn't seem to be an end to this Elite, does there?"

"There's gotta be an end somewhere..." I said.

"There always is," Victor added. He unhooked his crossbow, clicked off the safety, and took a glance around.

And then, four of the soldiers standing guard around headquarters were sliced down. One after the other, before any of us could react. I let go of Lex and put up a quick barrier of borrowed energy to stop the attack from coming through, but I was just too late. That was exactly how it was going to be with Skoodge.

Just a little too late.

I think that must have been the very second I realized that the word 'love' had snuck its way into every action I took. Love was a weird thing to figure out, since it was just a level above trust and respect. I trusted and respected everyone in the Corporation. Then there was a little more for people like Victor, and Ira, and even my father; then a little more for Gaz, as there had also been, and remained, for Nacea. And then something different for Lex. People do stupid things when they're in love. Really stupid things. Minds become narrowed. Goals become more focused... on only one thing.

How the hell, then, did Tak know that? Unless she'd just studied humans so damn hard she'd figured it out. Figured out the fact that I'd focus all of my energy on the one person I was actually in love with, rather than broaden my defense to others as well. Goddammit—_Goddammit._ Numbers from my own army were dead. Because I'd been a little too late.

"Oh, God..." I said under my breath, "no, no, no..."

Lex set a hand on my shoulder. "Dib—"

"Get out of here!" I shouted at the rest of the line. "Get out of here and focus your efforts elsewhere! This is a personal fight!" With that, I built up enough of an energy barrier for them to be able to make an escape. I had a feeling the snipers on the roof caught the memo as well. "No more collateral damage," I said, shaking my head once the others were gone.

"Please don't blame yourself," Lex tried.

"Anyone who dies here today for Earth did so under my order to fight back," I said. "Sorry, hon, I probably am going to take it personally, no matter who takes one for the good of the retaliation."

"Please understand that that really is what makes you a good leader," she insisted.

"It's true," Victor added. "But don't let it cloud your head too much, Dib. You can't prevent every death."

"Okay," I sighed. "But I am going to prevent one."

"You sure about that?" And there was that nasal, taunting tone again. Invader Skoodge.

The sun shone off of the blade of his scythe, which he held in one hand across his shoulders. He was surprisingly terrifying for someone of his body type and height. He grinned, seeming to enjoy the fact that he had the power to take away all I cared about, then stepped closer. Victor loaded his crossbow and I drew my sword. Lex took up her own, and trained it on the Invader. I loved that about her, and respected that about everyone in the Corporation: nobody was okay with being a victim. We were all here to fight back. No matter what.

"Out of the way," Skoodge demanded. "Unless you don't mind if I raise the death count my Tallest had originally set."

"You already did that. Besides. She's not your Tallest," I growled; "Red is."

Skoodge laughed. "And why would we still want to follow _him?_ He was defeated! Anyone who can't stand up to a successor doesn't deserve to be the Tallest!"

So that, like everything else in the Irken Empire, was all about power. Perhaps that was the reason Red seemed so power hungry... or at least, I knew he had issues on the subject. During his stay with us at the Corporation, he'd always seemed a little angry, even in lighter circumstances. He wanted power. His purpose was to lead. Just as mine was.

"So let's just get down to business, hmm?" he prompted, holding out his scythe.

"If you don't mind," said Victor quietly, preparing his crossbow, "I would like to take the first shot."

I couldn't deny him that. Even though I wanted to get back at Skoodge for what he'd already done to Nacea, Victor's love for his daughter was much stronger than my little issue of revenge. So I nodded, and Victor stepped forward, firing three arrows directly at Skoodge.

The Irken knocked two of them out of the way and took the third in the arm, but it didn't harm him. In a quick step, he was upon my godfather, and hauled him back before Victor could ready another arrow. My godfather jabbed back with one elbow, hitting Skoodge in the chest, then spun and whacked the Invader across the head with the full body of his crossbow.

As Skoodge shook himself of the blow and readied his two smaller scythes for a repeat of what he'd done to Nacea, Lex shot several arrows into his PAK, and Victor stepped back to fire a couple directly into Skoodge's head. The Invader picked himself up and yanked the arrows out. "Are you stupid?" he laughed. "My PAK has no regeneration limit!"

"But you can take a beating all the same," Victor snapped at him, shooting two arrows right between Skoodge's eyes. The Invader stumbled back, and I took that moment to rush forward and drive my sword into his side.

Skoodge grabbed it out and shoved me back; I sheathed my sword and spun around, kneeling to blast him twice with static energy from the air around me.

Until Skoodge surprised us all with a surge step, which resulted in him successfully disarming my godfather and holding him back by the arms as a human shield. "DAD!" Lex screamed. Neither of us had a good shot of Skoodge. Shit—I had to teleport again. I had to, no getting around that, not if Victor wasn't going to wind up...

"My second victim," Skoodge grinned.

"Don't you even dare!" I shouted. I took a surge step to wind up behind Skoodge, but his PAK opened, and the four metal spider legs came shooting out. One of them scratched me across the face, under my right eye, but I grabbed the three others and called up a shock to shoot from my hands into his PAK. Skoodge broke off his own additional metal limbs before the attack could hit him, though, and he backed up, yet again putting Lex and I in bad positions to fight back. Before I could reach the Irken again, he was now holding his twin blades against Victor's wrists, exactly where he'd cut Nacea before she died.

"No!" Lex cried. She stepped to the side, but her hands were shaking. Even if she could get a clear aim on Skoodge now...

"Lex, please, don't bother yourself with—" her father began. He was cut off by Skoodge pressing down with his blades until Victor's wrists bled. My godfather took in a deep gasp but did not cry out like Lex did when she'd seen what Skoodge had done. The Irken, in turn, smirked, and didn't look at all like he was about to let go, until I thrust my sword into his side. In one last quick motion, Skoodge let go of Victor, swinging his scythes around once to cut him in the neck just before he turned to force himself off of my sword.

Lex screamed again as her father hit the ground; it didn't seem like he'd be in any position to keep fighting anytime soon, so it was entirely up to me.

My sword hadn't even scratched the Irken. "Perhaps you'd like to meet the same fate?" he grinned at me, holding out his blades. "After I kill your pet here first, of course."

"Don't you call her tha—" I began. But Skoodge was already upon Lex. She screamed but kept her weapon at the ready nonetheless, even though he was much faster than the other Irkens we'd been fighting. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Victor, wincing, pick up his crossbow, his wrists still bleeding, not to mention his neck. Skoodge had just narrowly missed cutting completely into Victor's throat—if he had, the consequences would have been more awful than I wanted to imagine.

I shot a quick orb of energy at Skoodge, making him at least stop in his tracks before he could strike, and before I could attack again, my godfather took action.

"Stay away from my daughter!" Victor shouted forcefully, dashing in front of Lex and sending a volley of arrows at Skoodge. The Irken was not fazed by one of them.

"Still going, huh?" said Skoodge, switching to his single, long scythe. He spun it a few times for effect, catching the sun's rays again on its perfectly polished blade. "Sorry, but when I'm given orders, I stick to 'em." And with that, the blade of his scythe found its way to my godfather's stomach, and he choked, letting go of his weapon as he struggled to breathe. The second Skoodge pulled out his scythe, Victor fell to the ground, his wrists still bleeding, his breath becoming incredibly slow.

My own breath caught. No way. No. No, I was not losing the man who'd become like a true father to me; _no._ What the hell had I just seen—?

"No!" Lex screamed. Her voice displayed nothing but abject horror, and she fell to her knees beside her father. "No!" she cried out again, tears pouring from her eyes. "Dad, get up! For Heaven's sake, please, Dad, get up!"

My eyes narrowed, and I fixed my gaze on the Irken enemy, my vision even cloudier through the steadily forming tears. My eyes were burning, and I feared for a moment that my sight would go red, but no such thing happened. Hardly even feeling myself in motion, I took my sword up in both hands and lunged at Skoodge, striking almost without thinking again and again until I'd disarmed him, and then I thrust my sword unemotionally straight into his chest.

Skoodge just laughed. "I've already told you," he sneered, "you can't kill me in one piece."

"Fine," was all I said. I pulled my sword out, the hilt feeling hot in my hands. Quickly I darted around behind Skoodge and in one swift motion I cut his PAK off of him. I grabbed the PAK in my left hand, and held it away from me. The wires that had connected the mechanical parasite to his back flailed about in the air; I held it away from my body so the wires wouldn't grab on, and waited to see Skoodge's reaction before I continued my attack. He gasped, and a second later his hologram disappeared. He gazed up at me fearfully as I threw his PAK to the ground and shoved my sword through it.

"It's not that easy!" he tried. "My PAK won't be destroyed so easily!"

Saying nothing in response, I gathered up a large green orb of energy in my right hand, shifting the sword into my left, and aimed to destroy the PAK once and for all. Skoodge trembled and backed away, looking like he was about to run and look for an alternate life source in the next ten minutes.

"You're not going anywhere until I kill you!" Lex shouted at Skoodge. Without a second thought, I blasted his PAK, reducing it to dust. Skoodge cried out in horror, and then Lex forced herself to stand, drawing her crossbow and aiming it shakily at the core of the small Irken in front of her. Closing her eyes, she pulled the trigger, and the arrow swiftly found its way through Skoodge's chest. He gasped for breath for a moment, then closed his eyes, and then he wasn't moving anymore. Lex trembled, then dropped her crossbow and fell to her knees again, draping herself protectively over her father's body, heaving out her sobs.

Checking again to make sure Skoodge was dead, I knealt beside Lex and gently rubbed her back, knowing there was nothing in the world I could say at that point in time. I was so shocked from what had just happened, and so suddenly, that I was at a loss for even remembering that I might potentially be able to heal him. The tattoo on my back began to itch a bit as a reminder of that, but my head was so foggy. One of the people I respected more than anyone I had ever met was lying there in front of me, the same wounds on his neck, wrists and gut that had ended Nacea's life. He wasn't moving. He was not moving.

"Get up..." Lex pleaded again in a whisper. "Please, get up... I can't live without you!"

Just before I could gather myself to see if there was anything I could do, I heard someone rushing up to us. "Oh, God..." It was Ira. "Victor!"

Lex lifted her head, as did I, and Ira cautiously approached us. Both knowing that of all people, Ira may just be the one person who could help, we sat back, and Ira knealt, quickly touching the index and middle fingers of his left hand to a certain spot on Victor's neck.

Ira smiled weakly. "Don't worry, Lex," he said softly. "Your father's alive... but barely. We need to get him inside, right now."

"Oh, God," my girlfriend said in a whisper, her voice trembling and her eyes wide and bleary. "Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God..."

"Give me a hand, would you?" Ira asked. I thought that he was talking to me, but as soon as I began to respond, I noticed that my father had been only a few steps behind the doctor.

My eyes were narrow when I stared up at my dad. It was the only way I could tell him, _Don't you dare relapse now._ Dad looked—well, jeez, I really couldn't tell because of that damn lab coat and those damn stupid goggles, but—overwhelmed. Over-stimulated. Too much happening all at once. Too bad, though. Something could be done to help Victor Haynsworth, but only if we acted _now_ and only if all four of us were there to see through whatever it took to heal him.

"Oh, God, it's you..." Lex breathed out when my father knealt down beside us.

"Alexandria?" Dad asked, giving her a quick glance over.

"Reunions later!" Ira snapped. "We're getting Victor inside _now._ Into the infirmary, Charles, you'd better for God's sake remember where that is."

"I'm coming," I offered, as my father carefully lifted Victor off the ground. Ira stood, while Lex, still shaking, clamped her hands around her father's crossbow.

"You're sure about that?" Ira asked me.

"There might be something I can do," I said. "The Meekrob... thing... I could, like..."

"Okay," Ira said quickly. "Come on."

He re-tied his hair into a smoother low ponytail, then ticked his head for my dad to follow him inside. Lex stared after them until they were gone, then let out a huge heave of a sob and tightened her grip on the crossbow until her knuckles were a sick white. "Come on," I said to her as soothingly as I could. "I'm so sorry... Lex, hon, I'm so sorry, I should have..."

Lex shook her head furiously and bent over the crossbow. "We couldn't know," she said. "Just don't you let go of me. You are not going out of my sight."

"Me?" I guessed. I wouldn't have put it past her if she meant the weapon.

She nodded, just as fervently. "Just hold onto me, I don't want to be alone."

"You're not alone," I promised. "You ready to go inside? We need to go in quick, okay?"

My girlfriend nodded again. One-handed, she clipped her own crossbow back on, then let me help her to her feet. She kept a strong, steady grip on her father's ornate weapon, and she clicked the safety on; second nature. When I offered to take it, I knew she'd refuse, which she did. I made sure my own weapon was secure, then took a glance around before I led her back inside.

Invader Skoodge lay dead in the field in front of the headquarters building. At the very last moment, Charlotte Baudelaire walked into view, so I nodded over to her and gestured to the Irken's body. One of Tak's Elite leaders was dead; we had enough leverage over the rest of the Irken army to win the rest of the fight. Charlotte could give orders from there, and she knew enough to find Zim and Gaz in order to shape how the rest of the fight would continue to be drawn out.

Lex did not look back. Nor up, nor anywhere. Only down at her father's crossbow. And then down at her hands, where she had them shaking but folded, one over the other, on her lap several minutes later, when we met up with Ira and Dad in the infirmary.

– – –

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**Author's Note:**

Okay! Second chapter of tonight's update is all set. ^^

Though I feel like my usual range of emoticons really shouldn't be used in this note… Poor Victor. . This part has gone through a lot of different versions. We'll see the result soon.

Thank you so much to everyone who reads! I am in the process of actually for real this time uploading the PDF versions onto my dA (link in my profile), at least of TWFF for tonight; I'll figure out how I want to format the Saga soon too. (New year's resolution was to be more active, so if you are on that site, too, I'd love to say hello~) Should be at least two chapters next week, as well! We'll get back to Gaz's narration, and she'll have a longer chapter next time… her narrations seem so dreadfully short in the Saga, in comparison to the guys'. Ah, well. ^^ Thanks again for reading, and I will see you again next **Saturday, January 28****th****!** :3

~Jizena~

PS: Minor voice actor joke/reference somewhere in this chapter. XD (I tend to do that sometimes.)

– – –


	22. Second Invasion 6: Kill Your Pity

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**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Gaz's Records_

My brother had hypothesized that Tak's SIR unit MiMi was, in fact, a kind of satellite Control Brain. A direct spy link back to the core of the Irken government. It was highly probable, and something I came to believe more and more the longer I fought her. Given that the only other Irken robotic unit I knew of was GIR, I couldn't say that I had much of a sense of what an average SIR was supposed to be like, but MiMi's bullseye precision and capability to read and target my weaknesses before I could even fully formulate my next attack led me to think that she had a little more going on for her than the standard.

Her solidified hologram made her an almost impossible opponent to hit, too. It had been one thing when Tak herself had utilized similar technology; maybe the oddity was simply the fact that MiMi was _all robot._ Nothing organic about her, she was all chips and wires and functionality. She had no expression on her face, which itself—in human guise—suggested her to be anywhere between sixteen and twenty-six (I honestly just could not tell), and her eyes remained catlike and bright, bright red.

It took me a long time to even begin to figure out how to fight her, just due to her reaction time. She'd nabbed me away and sped me off to an uncrowded location before I could see if my brother had gotten to Lex in time, but I was sure he had (I had a feeling he'd have gone on one hell of a rampage if he hadn't), so I didn't focus my attention on where I wished I could be.

The first thing I learned in my fight with MiMi was to not let anything in my head that had nothing to do with our current direct contact. It was a good empathy lesson for me, especially in really discerning the differences between our worlds. The mechanical part of Irkens, the PAK, was a 'new' technology. Maybe it was ancient history by now, but once upon a time, the Irken race was quite similar to the human race. There was love, trust, fear and hate; there was empathy, and kindness, and a sense of loss when others died. Then, their machines became law, and, well, for lack of a better word, the soul of the entire race vanished.

Irken souls no longer existed, but the organic bodies, or at least a good handful of them, could remember what complex feelings were, and were cut from a different mold from the PAKs. Or, at least, that's what I managed to think about and hypothesize on my own before MiMi delivered a roundhouse kick to the back of my skull.

The blow sent all the blood in my head rushing full forward and the back again, and as I stumbled, dizzy, MiMi rushed around and jabbed her hand, fingers flat to an arrowhead point, into my gut. I honestly thought that my spleen might rupture or something, she hit me so hard. Almost as an involuntary synapse, I called up energy from the air around me, as Dib had taught me to do, and fired at the spot where MiMi most likely was. My eyes were closed as a reaction to the cranial rush, but I lifted one lid and raised my head just in time to see my blast hit its mark.

I coughed to catch my breath while MiMi shook off the hit as simply and elegantly as a cat will correct herself after a long fall, and I'd just gotten myself back up to speed when MiMi charged again.

Okay, so no more letting my mind wander. Sounds good. This time, she lunged with a similar strike to the middle of my collarbone, fingers flat, but I ducked back and grabbed her arm. MiMi's eyes flashed, and she spun to instead jab her hand down into my shoulder socket. I heard and felt the pop. A dislocation; dammit. Luckily, it was my right, and therefore non-dominant, arm currently out of commission, so I gathered another orb in my left hand, grabbed the back of MiMi's head, and shocked her.

Her red eyes blinked black, and her hologram faded. The robot fell limp at my feet—while she was blacked out, I popped my shoulder back into alignment and rolled my arm back a couple times just to make sure I'd fixed the slight dislocation, and just as I was bending to see exactly what kind of damage I'd dealt to MiMi, her eyes flared red, and she grabbed me around the neck with her enhanced right hand.

She flickered back into her hologram and glared at me for a second, then dug the claws of her hand armor in and threw me down. I'm not sure which hurt worse: the blow to my back, where I'd fallen, or the two open marks on the side of my neck where she'd grabbed me. She'd broken the skin but luckily not the vein, so at least I wasn't bleeding much. I'd get that looked at later.

Shit—no time to even think of injuries... she was on me again, taking a swipe at my face that I dodged at the last second. I grabbed her two long pigtails from behind (while I could grip them, they felt more like a fine, smooth silicone or wire rather than hair) and yanked her back. MiMi did not yelp, as she felt no pain, and bent back into a bridge, from which she flipped her legs over her head and kicked me with both feet in the sternum. I fell back but didn't let go. MiMi fell directly on top of me and raised her right hand to strike me in the face with that claw appendage again, but I let go of her pigtails, grabbed either side of her head, and blasted her with another shock of borrowed energy.

MiMi's eyes flickered black and red, but she remained functional enough to deal a blast of her own. I heard a whir as she charged herself, but couldn't fully stop her from firing the laser she shot from her eyes, just in the way GIR had done all these years. I did bring my hands up, though, to cover my face. My hands felt hot as the blast hit, but the Tavic ring I wore shielded me from any major epidermal damage.

When she blasted again, I knew she'd just keep going until I broke, so I kneed her in the ribs before she could get any satisfaction from that, then kick-flipped her off of me, scrambled to my feet, and blasted her one more time. She picked herself up slowly, and lifted her head high. Her eyes scanned me, feet to head, and then she lowered her chin.

"What?" I said, mocking her for taking the pause. "Are we done?"

"I have completed my analysis," said MiMi. It really did freak me out that her mouth didn't move, but her eyes still flashed with each syllable. Her stance also threw me: flat-backed, rigid; the perfect, ideal soldier... one without conscience. "Your level is adequate. We may advance."

"Meaning...?" I prompted.

"Nothing else is currently required." MiMi's words were clipped and precise. She didn't waste time explaining things that, in her opinion, other people should already know. "You meet a standard. This level is done."

"Honestly! Is everything just a game to you?" I snapped. "What _are_ you?"

In a twisted, flickering move, MiMi kind of smirked, and then evanesced.

"Okay!" I said, already past disillusioned. I threw my hands up in the air and added, "I guess we're done!"

There was no one around for me to vent my MiMi frustrations to, so I took a couple deep breaths and started running back into the fray. Which... wasn't as much of a fray as I was expecting. There was blood on the ground, mixed Irken and human, but bodies were already being carted off to unknown (at least to me) locations, and there were far less Elite soldiers still engaged in battle than I thought there should have been.

Goddammit. Another retreat. Another _test._

I couldn't see my brother, or Lex or her father, or even Ira anywhere. I tried to stall Charlotte, but she said something much too hastily for me to be able to fully hear. Fine. There was still one place I could go where I knew a fight would still be taking place... and, though it was one I had been quite sternly cautioned away from, it was one I desperately wanted to see both in action and completion. It didn't take me long to find that spot again, either, just from Tak's easily traceable, long-winded, manic laughter.

Followed, of course, by Red's own, "Shut _UP!"_ That, and two gunshots.

I came upon the clearing in which Ira and I had left them: the Tallest unjustly ripped from his position, and the malevolent, conniving Irken who had done the deed, both looking far more human than either of them, I'm sure, had ever felt. Tak's illusion, and Red's forced altered reality. Red wasn't looking at the top of his game, but he was stubborn and persistent; he was at least giving Tak a pretty hard time, if he was not only still standing but that intact.

But his irritation was showing through, almost too much. I could read it in Red's faltering stance: he was plenty used to fighting for himself, but what he wasn't familiar with was losing. Tak hardly showed a scratch, while the true Tallest had really taken a beating, and was showing signs of fatigue. Tak had knocked him down to a human level, after all, and being matched against the kind of power he was supposed to have, Red couldn't quite keep up. His discomfort for looking human was more obvious that day than it was even on the first day I'd met him. But at least he was doing himself a favor by not getting knocked down.

The fact that Red was still standing, too, was pissing Tak off. I hid myself as best I could behind a large tree (one of the very few around), several feet from where they were, so I wouldn't get caught in the worst of crossfires.

"Give me that thing!" Red hollered at Tak, who merely smirked and shot an orb of energy in his direction. Red dodged out of the way, but Tak threw another—the only way for Red to avoid the second blast was to hit the deck. He dove flat onto his stomach, then pulled one of his guns on Tak and fired at her ankles.

One bullet hit, and Tak cursed in a language I couldn't place (and was therefore convinced it was some form of ancient Irken), and in retaliation, she blasted again. Red was back on his feet in a second, but he was getting winded and couldn't lunge right at her. "Just give up, Red!" Tak called out, gathering energy in both hands. "I hold the true power, here, and your choices are either to crawl away with the other humans or kneel down before me the way the rest of this vast Empire does!"

"I don't crawl," Red growled. He put his gun back in its holster, took in a deep breath, and darted at Tak. She shot at him, and both blasts grazed him a bit; Red ignored whatever pain he was in and continued running until he'd made it to her. He dealt a right hook to her across the face, then shoved her down. Tak snarled and feinted back when he struck out with another attempted blow; Red stopped mid-attack, and when Tak had gotten herself a far enough distance away, he said harshly, "And I will never kneel."

Red then lifted his twin pistols and fired them both. Tak dipped down and lunged, but I saw Red grin: he had wanted that to happen. As soon as Tak had run close enough, he planted the barrels of his guns at Tak's throat and fired. Tak screamed, and her body flared with smoke from the gunpowder. She grabbed at her throat and coughed out smoke, then began to revert to her true Irken shape.

Before she could fully revert, however, Red grabbed hold of the glowing green gem called the Cabochon, and yanked it off from around Tak's neck. Her body twisted and rebelled, and the scream that she emitted was... well, it was certainly inhuman, but it was enough to even make me feel bad that she had to go through that. That was a scream of near-death. Of experiencing the feeling and the horror of an early death, but being plagued to live through it and do nothing but understand it for the rest of your life.

In a hiss of smoke, Tak's body smoldered back into Irken form. For a mere second, she had the appearance of an Irken Tallest, but I couldn't get a good look at the features before she contracted in on herself, and she twisted back to the size I was used to seeing her.

While she was small and still recovering, Red slammed his foot down onto her chest and held her down on the ground. To rub salt in the wound, he tossed the Cabochon once between his hands, then dangled it over his head and to his left, then sneered, "Guess I'm the Tallest again."

Tak glared up at him, then started laughing. It started off small, then grew and grew in intensity until I thought she was going to pass out from laughing so much and so hard. "What?" Red demanded. When Tak didn't let up, he leaned in further, pulled out the gun on his right hip, cocked it, and shoved it into Tak's mouth. "WHAT?" he roared. "What's so funny? What is so fucking funny? You are going to shut up and then you are going to rot in prison until I can issue you a fitting execution for this! As Tallest, I order you to—"

"Tallest?" Tak said while biting the barrel of the gun. She shifted into her taller, solidified human hologram, and grabbed Red's wrist, then guided it aside, therefore getting him to remove the gun from her mouth. "That's the laugh, Red."

"Tallest Red!" he shouted.

"Really?" Tak punched him in the knee; Red swore at her and involuntarily drew his leg back, thus freeing her. Tak leapt to her feet and stepped dangerously close to him. Red quickly corrected himself, clenching his left hand around the Cabochon and placing his gun under Tak's chin. Tak merely smiled, and said, "The Mirror is still active. If you want to be Tallest again, you've got to kill the pity, and you just can't do that, can you?"

"What do you mean, kill the—"

"You're an Original, Red. As am I. I know what you are; I know what you have."

"So I have some empathy, so what? You're still going to fucking prison and then you're going to be killed." Even as Red stared Tak down, though, I saw him hesitate somewhat. So, Red could feel and understand pity? Was that why he'd taken the machine comment so harshly?

"Why?"

"Because I'm the Tallest!"

"Then why do you still look human?"

That got Red to freeze. I hoped I didn't draw in too deep of a gasp for them to hear me. I had no idea how the Cabochon worked, of course, but I hadn't even made the connection that Red hadn't yet returned to Irken form himself, now that he had the means to, right there in his hand.

"Oh, and Red?" said Tak.

"Tallest... Red..." Red growled at her, though he was faltering even more. He could not hide his unease from her last statement.

"Whatever. I want you to know that this whole thing—"

"What, you stealing my power?" he snapped.

"All of it," Tak grinned. "Everything I have done has been just one more test in my grand experiment."

Red was furious. I was furious, but I couldn't move or I was pretty sure one or the other of them would just turn and kill me right then and there. So all I could do was listen. September... something to do with September? Obviously. I had absolutely no doubt that it had everything to do with Zim. Tak was running experiments in order to do something to him. That had to be it.

"What are you saying?" Red demanded.

"Oh, was that not clear enough?" Tak laughed. Her eyes narrowed and flashed. With a simple flick of one hand, she disarmed Red, tucked his gun into her boot, then grabbed him down to her eye level by the front of his shirt. "Look at those eyes," she then sneered. "Look at those tiny, weak eyes."

"You're not making a grab for the Cabochon," Red noticed.

"Astute," Tak scoffed. "Any other winning statements? I'm done with that part of my experiment. Do whatever you want with it." Then, she kissed him on the cheek. Red flushed and punched her off of him. When Tak hit the ground from that, a black blur rushed behind her, and there again was MiMi, who helped her mistress to her feet. As Red was wiping off his cheek in disgust, Tak cackled, "You've been a wonderful test subject!" MiMi's eyes flashed. "And, by the way, I believe our conversation has been spied on."

Shit.

"WHAT?" Red bellowed.

"I've nothing further to say! I'm leaving Skutch in the Commander's capable hands—"

"Tak, don't you dare—" the Tallest warned.

"—and I will return to the Empire to continue with my preparations." With a grin, she completed her thought, "Come reclaim the _Massive_ when you're ready to kill your pity."

"What do you mean, kill my pity?"

"There's a part of you that wants to be human," said Tak, pointing an accusatory index finger at him.

"THERE IS NO—"

"That," Tak continued, snarling, "is why you are no longer fit to be the Tallest. We have no room for those emotions in the Empire. So reclaim it. Take the Empire for now. I don't care. But your pity will kill you unless you destroy it first."

"I don't—"

"If I were you," Tak went on, "I'd get comfortable. This isn't just Invasion. It's reconstruction."

And with that, she was gone. She and MiMi both, leaving Red alone in the field to contemplate Tak's confusing yet terrifying words. For a very long time, he did not move. I held my breath for the most part, and when I did need to breathe, I did so quietly so as not to give myself away and really get myself in more trouble than I was ready for.

It took a good two minutes for Red to even look at the Cabochon again. He was frozen, but his back was to me, so I could not see any of his expressions as he worked through Tak's statements and warnings. Somehow, I felt like Red would be able to hear my thoughts, only because I was trying so hard to piece together what Tak was saying. She'd said that a part of him wanted to be human. Of course Red would deny that, but what the hell could she have _meant? _Red had never shown any indication of wanting much at all to do with the human race. He'd made compromises, but no sacrifices. He'd dealt, but not warmed up. As far as I'd seen, anyway.

"...Pity...?" he muttered, glaring at the Cabochon. He was now in profile, and I could see the stern, horrid expression on his face. "Kill my pity? That's the only way? I don't think so." Then, he turned to face completely in my direction. "I told you to fucking leave and let me handle that," he said, knowing I could hear.

There would have been absolutely no sense in arguing with him. Red was furious; partially at me, though primarily at Tak. However, getting him in an even worse mood was not at the top of my to-do list (ever), so I stepped out and even gathered my courage enough to just plain walk up to him. I was prepared for him to rip me apart. The glare he gave me was worse, though. He projected onto me probably every frustration I think the guy had ever had. And for someone around two Irken centuries old... that was a lot.

"You never said I couldn't come back," I began to argue.

Red just scowled at me and said, "You should've known not to."

I shrugged him off. "So what the hell just happened, as long as we're not gonna pretend I haven't been here for a while?" I asked the Tallest. "What'd she mean by 'kill your pity?'"

"THAT. That re-questioning is _exactly_ why you shouldn't have come back." Furious, Red turned sharply away from me and began storming back toward the headquarters building. I gave him a head start, then followed behind him. When it was clear enough to him that I wasn't going to let up, he grudgingly kept saying, "Tak's obsessed with humans."

"Gee, I couldn't tell."

"Don't you fucking snap at me or talk back to me or I really will kill you," Red warned. I knew he meant it, so I didn't interrupt him again. He did not thank me for shutting up, nor did I expect him to at all. "She's just playing a game with us. All of us. I have no idea what it is, but the only way to win is to trap her."

"Trap her," I repeated.

"I have to go back to the _Massive,"_ said Red forcefully. "Before the whole battle moves there, I'm going back and I'm getting my damn power back."

As I walked and Red stormed in frustration, we found ourselves going through a nearly emptied battlefield. Tak's forces had once again retreated... this time seemingly without a 'parting gift,' in the way they had last time. Then again, she'd said something about leaving Skutch, but what Commander was she talking about? I thought Skutch was the Commander himself. She couldn't have meant she was leaving him here hostage or something, right? I'd seen Skutch fight a little. I highly doubted he was the type to agree to be a hostage, let alone even a negotiator.

We did run across Tenn, however, as Corporation members flitted around trying to clean up the remaining messes from the battle. "Tenn!" I called out to her. "What's going on?"

"I have no idea," said Tenn, jogging up to meet us. Her presence was the only thing that got Red to stop, but he kept his eyes on the headquarters building. Folding her arms, she said, "Tak called the entire Elite back. I think Skutch is still around here somewhere but hell if I know where. I still say that idiot's on the wrong side."

"Speaking of sides," said Red, "you gonna keep wearing that uniform, Tenn?"

Tenn glanced down at her grey SEC uniform coat, then leered up at the Tallest and said, "Yeah. Why?"

"Because I'm going back to the Empire."

"How?"

Red paused for a second, then muttered, simply, "Fuck."

"Hey, if you do need to, we managed to commandeer some ships like Dib instructed," said Tenn. "I mean, you can get back, but why? And why now? Can't you just wait till Dib gives the—"

"I have this," said Red, holding up the Cabochon. "I don't wait. I'm leaving."

"What are you going to do with that?" I asked Red.

"Well, I know what I _should_ do with it, and what I _want_ to do," Red grumbled. The Cabochon gleamed green against the lenses of Red's thin, rectangular glasses, overpowering for an instant even the bright red of his eyes. That gem, no matter how one was to look at it, was something of an ultimate symbol of power. It was quite possible that it was created only to be coveted.

"We should study it," I said, to interrupt any corrupt ideas about the thing Red may have been having. "It'd be useful to do that..."

"I have to destroy it," said Red, straightforwardly. I held my breath, especially when I noticed that Tenn wasn't commenting, either. There was no changing Red's mind, no convincing him otherwise. He was set to destroy that thing? He was going to. "It's the only way we're going to move forward. I have to destroy it."

"So why don't you?" I challenged him.

"Not yet." Turning to Tenn, he said, "I'm taking at least one person back with me. Are you in or not?"

"Not," said Tenn. "I still kinda hate you, remember?"

"Your call." With that, Red pushed past us and continued on.

So... if he needed to destroy it, and he was taking someone back with him, but he hadn't actually destroyed the Cabochon yet, then—

Oh. Oh, no.

"RED, WAIT!" I shouted, booking it after him.

"Gaz, what?" Tenn wondered, at my heels.

"Red, you can't do that!" I screamed at the Tallest, even though I was only strides behind him.

"Who says I can't?" Red hollered back without turning his head. "I'm the Tallest again and what I say goes. Besides. I'm a machine, remember? I can't 'want' anything else."

"Don't be stupid!" I shouted. "Red, what the fuck?"

By that point, we'd made it to the main building, where Red slammed the door open and stormed in. Tenn and I were just a breath behind, and as soon as Red stood in the living room, he shouted out, "IRA!"

Kill your pity.

Whatever Tak had meant, it had something to do with Ira. I'd seen the way Red looked at him sometimes. Red was Irken, but could he actually have empathy? Shit. I'd been convinced that he lacked the ability to feel pity, just like all Irkens did; Tak had called him 'Original,' though, and cited that feeling specifically.

Red felt empathy. Meaning that he felt bad for what he'd done to Ira by forcing him to work for the Empire. No, Red didn't seem human. He made so damn sure that he operated like the other Irkens, that he was in control, and I knew he wasn't faking the fact that most emotions went right over his head. But there was one person he respected; one person he felt pity for, one person he—connected with.

If a part of Red wanted to be human... it was a part of him that had attached itself to Ira, over the past several years of serving with him, and only in a human body, with a human mind, could Red begin to understand that. His stubbornness continued to filter whatever he felt as unimportant and let him ignore it, but not when it was blatantly pointed out. A part of Red felt pity for what Ira was going through. That part was already human.

I had no idea if it was love or not, but still, as the saying goes, people do stupid things when they're in love.

Red was setting out to do the dumbest thing I could possibly think of. It wasn't just stupid. It was selfish. The person he meant to take back to the Empire with him was my godfather. There had been two Tallest, and if he got rid of the empathy he felt for the one who should have been human all along, Red would have it that way again.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Oh my… ^^;

Red is so interesting. Red is so, so interesting. I've written in his perspective before and it's so much fun; I don't know if any Red-narrated chapters will make it into the bonuses for _IZMS,_ but anyway, he's so fun to write, narrating or not. However, he can kind of go to extremes…

Also, Tak, you are ridiculous. Yes, she ended this Invasion quite early, but the Red vs. Tak fight is nowhere near done... :3 And the real attack is actually just getting started...

I have been a bit sick these past couple days so my editing/rewrite process has slowed… if I can, I will try super hard to get the next chapter up because gaaah I really want to… D: So hopefully tonight but possibly tomorrow there'll be a Dib chapter up. ^^ (I just had so much I wanted to add to his narration… it'll be worth a wait I promise!) (Also, sorry Gaz, this, too, was a shorter chapter than I thought…)

But all in all I shall definitely see you again next **Saturday, February 4****th****!** Can I just say that I love that this is a leap-year? I don't know if I've mentioned it anywhere but Ira's birthday is February 29th, so leap years make me excited. Anyway! Thank you for reading! Hopefully I'll have that next chapter up soooooon~! :3

~Jizena

– – –


	23. Pasts 3: Charles

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Dib's Records_

Nothing stung worse than realizing there was nothing I could do.

Lex was shaking, and it took all of her willpower to let go of my hand when Ira requested my help. We hadn't been in the infirmary very long before my assistance was needed. Ira did the basics, and slightly to my surprise, Dad helped. The SEC infirmary is made up of two separate rooms, connected by a door in the middle, for patient privacy. One was larger, brighter, and better equipped, which, to our luck, was the one to which Victor Haynsworth was brought for treatment.

I didn't watch most of the first part. I couldn't. I sat beside Lex and mumbled out reassurances about it being all right, that her father would be okay, that Ira knew what he was doing and that we weren't going to experience a loss that afternoon. Not Victor; please, not Victor.

The ornate crossbow lay off to the side, and every few seconds, Lex's eyes would dart to it, then flutter over to where Ira was setting up, then back to her hands on her lap. She didn't say much of anything, just whispered out prayers and begged me not to leave.

Dad had already laid Victor out on the infirmary cot by the time we'd made it in; as I shut the door, Ira was finishing up rigging his old friend to an IV and a heart monitor. Fully in his element, Ira had tied his ponytail into a braid and clipped back his long bangs to keep his hair completely out of his face, and he'd donned a white lab coat and was wearing a pair of blue surgical gloves. At the foot of the cot, my father busied himself by triple-checking Ira's supplies—bandages and disinfectants, surface treatments and cutting and stitching supplies. Victor's shirt had been removed and tossed into a dirty linens bin, but that was something I really did not want to look at: the final cut from the scythe. His neck and wrists had looked bad enough. If my shoulder wound from before had been any indication... Skoodge knew how to cut deep.

Thank God we'd killed Invader Skoodge after that, though. That's all I can say. I'd be a mess if I knew he was still out there. Worse of a mess than I already was, let me make that correction. I was holding on for my girlfriend's sake, but inside I was a tempest. My dad just had to show himself again on the day it seemed Lex might lose hers.

When Ira finally called me over, he'd finished washing away the laceration over Victor's stomach, but hadn't stitched it up or bandaged it yet. That, I learned, was my job. To see if that part of the process could be eliminated with Meekrob techniques. "Dib," Ira said, in as calm a tone as he could manage, "I know the shock from last time pushed your abilities back some. Don't be too upset if this doesn't entirely work. Please. I have other methods, but I'd like it if you could give it a try."

"I can't look at that," I said childishly, my voice wavering. Yet I couldn't look away. Even without my glasses, I could clearly see that that cut had done some horrible damage.

"I'm only asking if you can seal up the cuts, Dib," Ira said soothingly. "If you can't, it's all right; I'll get back to work."

I nodded, folded my hands together, right over left, palms flat over the gash, and took in a deep breath. Before I could continue on, though, I choked, shook my head, and asked, "What exactly's wrong with him? I mean, like, other than the..."

"Severe blood loss," Ira said, again speaking calmly, "for the most part. Punctured stomach, some internal bleeding—"

I nodded to get Ira to stop. "Is he conscious?"

"No."

"Okay." _Punctured stomach_ was about all I needed to hear. I didn't want to heal up the visible part of the wound and miss anything that could mess Ira up later, so I focused my energy on the full trauma. Nacea had taught me to tap into 'the universe.' It was hard... a lot harder than healing myself. I blocked out all of the sound in the room, and read only the energy from the wounds.

In Meekrob healing skills, just as in any kind of hyperawareness, positive energy and negative energy are in a constant flow. The goal of healing through those techniques is to counter the negative energy with positive, which I could easily do on myself since it just meant taking energy from a healthier part of me and letting that energy flow to the wound. With Victor, it was hard to tell. Taking from what little energy he still had in order to heal him could still potentially be lethal. So I borrowed some positive energy from the air, from all around, and put my all into the work. My back felt hot until I could feel the full shape of the Meekrob tattoo on my skin.

But I did feel the wounds start to close. I stopped when I started to feel lightheaded, but opened my eyes to see a cleaner and smaller wound than I had before. As I caught my breath, Ira turned me to face him, smiled, and said, "That was incredible. Thank you."

"What now?" I wondered. "Do you still need me, or...?"

"You look exhausted," Ira noted. "Could you continue?"

"I... well, if I can at least try..." I said.

"Out of curiosity, Dib, can you revive consciousness?"

I shook my head. I knew I couldn't. Meekrob skills were great, but just like everything else, they were limited. No, I could not revive consciousness, even if I tried. Nacea's remaining influence seemed to confirm that after I'd had the thought on my own. The heat from the tattoo died down; the universe rushed in. "Is he comatose?" I asked in a whisper.

"Believe it or not," said Ira, continuing his work again at a rapid pace, "it was the cut to his neck and Victor's own over-exertion that did the worst damage. The final blow was meant to be final, and could really have just finished it, but you stitched that up perfectly, so no causes for alarm in those respects anymore."

"How long is he going to be unconscious?" I asked, getting nervous.

"I can't tell, I'm sorry."

"Well, what kind of coma is it?"

"Partially induced," Ira admitted. "I had to. It's the only way I could start working immediately."

"Okay," I mumbled, not understanding. And that was what it boiled down to in the end: my lack of expertise. There was nothing I could do, past what I had already managed. I couldn't coax someone out of unconsciousness. We just had to hold on and let medical science do the rest.

"Dib, it's all right," said Ira.

"Thanks," I managed. "I hope I helped."

"You did," Ira assured me, smiling. "Immensely."

"'Kay."

"If it's any consolation, you—" my own father began.

I shot him a glare. Oddly enough, Dad stepped back. I glanced down at Victor; my stomach churned and I had to look away again. Swallowing back my discomfort, plus all of the reservations I'd already had on this earlier topic, I clenched my hands into fists at my sides to keep myself from lashing out too harshly, and said through clenched teeth, "Dad, I need to talk to you."

After Dad received a stern glare from Ira as well, he nodded his agreement. He left the room first, on my instruction to wait out in the grand hall, while I spoke softly to my girlfriend a little before she agreed that the best thing for all of us would be for me and Dad to leave the room for a while. I held her and kissed her delicately before I left, and then Lex moved to sit on a four-legged stool closer to her father's cot, where she could be in Ira's company and cope in a different way with the reality of her father's fall. I wanted to stay in the room with her more than I wanted to go bitch at my father, but after a couple minutes, Lex confessed that she really did want to be alone for a little while, which convinced me that leaving for a few minutes would be more or less all right.

My head was in a total fog as I was heading out to meet with my dad in the hall. When I saw him, his coat shocking white against the darkly-colored all, I said emotionlessly, "Come on. My office."

"Did Charlotte give you my old office?" Dad wanted to know.

I cringed at his use of her first name, like, oh, they were still such good friends (whereas when I'd left for the SEC in the first place, he'd spat her last name at her like an insult, and Charlotte Baudelaire was one of those women who just did not deserve to be insulted due to her high work ethic and views on preservation of life), and kept on walking. "No," I said. "She gave your office to..." I choked, but got out, "she gave it to Victor."

"Oh," was all Dad managed to respond.

"Yeah."

As we crossed the hall, I saw the spot on the wall I'd dug out with my bare hand when Tak had coaxed that PAK out of me. Fucking bitch, I had no idea what her aims were, and I was starting to think I'd never know. She just liked to toy around with humans, and that was all. Or, that seemed to be all. There had to be more. Right? Or maybe she was just random. Or maybe even she didn't really know what she actually wanted. Huh. Whatever way I looked at it, I hated her, and I hated the fact that the PAK might surface again.

"I've been wanting to talk to you, for a while, now, son, I—" Dad began.

"Save it," I snapped. "Save it till we're inside. All right. Go." My office door was within reach, and I stepped inside before inviting my father in. Once inside, I asked him to shut the door, and I walked up to my desk, pulling on a spare pair of glasses I kept there, then slamming a hand down on the desktop. "You didn't call..." I said angrily, not turning to face my father, for fear of what else I might say. "I'm fifteen years old now, Dad. It's been two years, and not once... not once did you call."

"Son, I..."

"And it was eleven years on top of that," I continued, turning back to face him, "that you decided to... do whatever the hell it is you do instead of be a parent." I gestured to Dad's whole getup. And not just the lab coat and goggles. Everything. The whole _Professor Membrane (trade mark, copyright, etc. etc.)_ package. The product name, not the person. All right, so a lot of my current frustration was accentuated by the fact that Victor Haynsworth was comatose and there was nothing I could do about it, but now that Dad and I were off the battlefield and I didn't have to rely on his help, that eleven years of pent-up rage came flooding right in.

I grit my teeth to keep my eyes from forming tears. On one hand, I was angry at my father. On the other, I just wanted to understand him. To keep myself sane, I decided to start with the latter, for conversation.

"Dad," I began apprehensively, not even knowing where to begin, "there's so much I want to ask you, but it's so hard. I've been realizing these past few years... I barely know you. Who are you?"

My father sighed. I couldn't read his emotions, since I couldn't see his face, but his posture was off, meaning that he probably was deeply sorry that I knew nothing about him. "I'll begin with who I _was,_ then," he decided, tossing his electrically-charged black gloves to the side and reaching up to undo the clasp on the large neck of his lab coat.

Now, I hadn't seen my father wear anything but that awful lab coat since I was too young to remember, so that he was even considering showing his face was a foreign concept to me. The closest I'd seen of his appearance had been in the portrait room, just before I'd met Miyuki, and that portrait was from the 1980s. I barely had a reference point.

When he'd undone the neck, he folded it down so that it rested below his chin, then undid the rest of the lab coat, revealing his less-professional, casual clothes underneath. From the inside right breast pocket, he drew a pair of plain old glasses, hardly different from mine, then removed his goggles, letting them hang round his neck, and slowly slid the glasses on. His eyes, like mine were before my Irken genes began to show, were soft brown in color, and lit with a great intelligence. There were slight, age-defining lines below his eyes and near the corners of his mouth; a prominent cleft in his rigid chin. There was real feeling in his eyes. I could barely believe it. For the first time in around a decade, I saw my real father again.

"This is who I am," my father said almost flatly. As odd as it felt to think it, it was almost strange seeing his mouth move as he spoke. "Do you remember me like this at all?"

"Barely," I answered honestly. I backed up against the desk and looked him over with scrutiny. Just like that. Just like that he'd walked back into my life, and just like that, he'd gone and shown me his face. It was just... surreal.

"I thought so," Dad said, mostly to himself. He cleared his throat and went on. "I was born Charles Mansfield—I changed my name when I turned twenty, using the pen name I'd always applied to my inventions. It was under the title of Professor Membrane that I created this Network, alongside your mother."

"Why did you leave it?" I demanded. "Why, all my life, did you try to keep me away from the paranormal? Why, if you loved it enough to create such a wonderful Network, Dad, would you even consider throwing that all away?"

Dad glanced over his shoulder, as if looking back at the door would give him a window to see back into the infirmary, and then he let his eyes meet mine again. "So..." he began; and now I could finally see the pain and nostalgia in his eyes; "how long has Ira Murasaki been here? How do you know him?"

"He's been here a while, and it's too long a story to tell right now," I said. "I know that he was abducted."

"By Irkens?"

"By Irkens," I confirmed. "Anyway, answer my question."

Dad sighed. He wasn't even arguing with me! This was so weird. "After Ira's abduction, your mother told me that she wouldn't stay long," Dad answered painfully, gladly obliging to my demand. "I knew she was Irken; she told me the night I proposed... but I never thought she would leave me so soon. When she had left, I swore to myself that I would shield you and your sister from the truth. That was an awful thing for me to do, son, and I deeply regret that now. But other things caused me to change.

"When people outside the Network saw what I could do... when word of my inventions got out... I couldn't escape the public's eye. It all happened so fast... and pretty soon the media had turned me into something and someone that I never wanted to be! It's been almost twenty years, now, since that whole ordeal started, and there's still no hope of escape.

"I told the Network to go underground when you were still very young," he continued, looking rather sad, "and cut my contact with them not long after Miyuki left. That was my greatest mistake. But I needed money, and the nonprofit Network just wasn't making it. I was basically left with only one option... to throw away everything I'd once stood for and resign myself to..."

"Real science?" I taunted, folding my arms in a huff. Surprisingly, Dad looked a little pained, causing me to shut right up. "Wait..." I began, still in a state of disbelief, "you were... _reluctant_ to do all that?"

"Everyone has dreams," Dad said painfully. He gave me an almost apologetic look, as if he'd forgotten how to do so and had just taken a class in it again, then began to pace, looking at the bookshelves in my office. "Mine were interrupted and twisted early on. The loss of your mother was more than I could bear, and I didn't want you to someday feel the sting of failure that still oftentimes hits me."

He paused at one of the shelves, and delicately ran his fingertips along the spines of the books. Everything on those shelves was either parascientific study on the supernatural, or literature dealing with supernatural themes. Dad loved it. Jeez—my dad _loved it._ And missed it. "When I got caught up in all of this... this... real science nonsense my company started to market through me, I... I forgot about what really mattered to me: you and your sister," he continued on. "I'd originally done everything for your benefit, to give you a comfortable upbringing, so that I could have stable income as a single parent. But I started getting ideas I never would have thought of before... the worst of them being my sudden desire to expose you to the realm of 'real' science at a young age, so that you wouldn't have to go through everything that _I_ went through... and... and so that, when you were sixteen, I wouldn't lose you."

"Sixteen?" I wondered. One year away.

"That's why I had to come back now," Dad said. "I had to, or I'd never forgive myself. I had to clean up before I could, and I've been doing a lot of thinking these past couple years—"

"Why when I'm sixteen?" I asked quickly.

"It was just a number your mother mentioned, a long time ago," my father sighed. All I could think of was Tak again, and how her second attack on us in total, the Time Warp, had been a five-year jump, making me sixteen at that point. _Was_ she being meticulous with her choices? Were we going to have to sit through one more year of her stupid games? I shook the bothersome Irken from my head and focused back on my father. "It's the age she said you'd be best fit to... you know... rise to the occasion on her side of the family and all..."

"Does it mean anything if I say I'm edgy about that?" I wondered.

Dad laughed a little, then fell silent. He picked up a book. _The Mothman Prophecies._ He smiled at it somewhat, dusted it off, then set it back on the shelf he'd taken it from. "What'd you just do?" I asked quickly.

"What?"

"Why that book?" I wondered.

_"Mothman?"_ Dad grinned—so weird, so weird, so weird—and turned toward me, taking the book up in his hand again. "You want to hear a story? Ira was the one who named the Network."

"The _Swollen Eyeball_ was Ira's idea?" I said. I knew I made an awful face at that. That from the guy who ritually drank only the best tea in the kitchen and had stunning posture and honorable morals? I didn't think so. "Doesn't seem like his—"

"Cup of tea?" Dad laughed. Oh, ha ha. "It isn't. I named it to spite him."

"Wow, you guys were really assholes to each other," I noted.

"You have no idea."

"Didn't Ira, like, go to Harvard or something?"

"And Victor to Oxford and I to MIT. Until I dropped out and finished at Cambridge College in Mass." Dad shrugged. "Don't judge a man by his diploma, now. We're all geniuses, but we're idiots. Don't tell Ira I said that."

"Wasn't planning on it." I rolled my eyes. "What does any of this have to do with _The Mothman Prophecies?"_

Dad shrugged. "It doesn't, much," he admitted. "It does in the roundabout way that I named the network after a jab Ira dealt me about these goggles giving the wearer swollen eyeballs if used too often—as you can see, that is not the case—and I added in using codenames when Victor told me the idea was absurd. _Mothman_ was mine."

"Oh, shut up," I said almost involuntarily. "Really?" Dad nodded. "It was mine."

He grinned again and set the book back down. "Great minds, son."

"God." I bent at the waist and grabbed at my bangs in frustration, then just dug my fingers into my scalp, trying to process everything I was hearing. Everything about this... incredibly... normal person. Honest to God, take off the lab coat and goggles, and the guy was _real._ His vocal inflections were different, not so haughty, not so clipped and polished and professional. The words he was saying were _real._ The sentiment he was sharing with me was _real._

His love for the paranormal, for the Network, and for my Irken mother—all real.

"That really was you, huh?" I wondered. "The old you?"

"The me I've been neglecting for far too long," my dad nodded.

"Dad, I... I had no idea..." I said, feeling a little guilty. I lifted my head to study him again, and just... stared. I tried to picture him and Miyuki together; okay, that was kind of hard, but at some point, they really had been those people I'd seen in the portraits. Ira's abduction couldn't have been the only incident to set Miyuki off though. She was so eccentric... of all times for her to not be randomly turning up. "I'm sorry... I..."

"No need to apologize, son. None of this is your fault," he assured me. "I should have done better. There are so many things I want to take back... actions, words... so many things I want to do over. I should have _told_ you about your Irken blood, not _hidden_ it from you. The second I heard you utter the name 'Zim,' when you were... younger..." he didn't know how old I'd been; nice, great, awesome— "I knew I was going to lose you. After all the things Miyuki said about him—the role he'd play... I..."

"This..." I began, shaking my head, trying to process the words my father was saying, "this is so hard to believe. You knew. All this time, Dad... you _knew!"_

"And I deeply apologize for never telling you, son, I really do."

"Th-that's another thing," I found the courage to say at last. My eyes welled up with tears, against my will. So many things were breaking me lately, though, they were bound to surface at some point. "Why, Dad... why don't you ever call me 'Dib?'" I removed my glasses and dried my eyes with one hand, then slid my glasses back on and glared at my dad. "Never _once_ have I heard you call me by name! You call _Gaz_ by name sometimes, but never me! I've maybe heard you say my name once or twice, but it was purely out of context, never because you wanted to... never when you were addressing me! It's like you only acknowledged that I was there all these years! You _call_ me 'son,' but do you _mean_ it?"

"I used to call you by name," Dad replied slowly, "but these past ten years... it's almost as though I've felt unworthy."

"Is that any excuse?" I cried.

"I don't know why, but it stopped when I became too involved with my work to really call myself a father for you two!" Dad yelled. I knew he wasn't yelling _at_ me; he was merely upset. "I suppose I simply... I'm not sure. After a while, when I stopped using your name, I... I just felt that, if I did, you'd think I was trying to make up for lost time, which, in all honesty, I've never had the time to do. I've wanted to for years now, but it's almost too late."

"No, it's not, Dad," I told him. It wasn't too late. He'd come back, hadn't he? That was proof enough that he wanted to reform. The longer he'd put off talking to me, the more he probably felt that 'too late' had already passed. Yes, Dad was an intelligent man, but there were things he didn't understand. I knew that I would never be able to fully comprehend everything that he had gone through, especially with Miyuki, but I was willing to open up and listen, whenever he wanted to talk.

After all, he'd just broken his media contract. The Professor Membrane name had belonged, for a long time, to an industry. Therefore, as long as he bore that name, anything and everything he did had to be at the jurisdiction of the media company that essentially owned him. They had full rights to his name and inventions. So, all right, I'll say it: in the true teenage sense, yeah, I thought it was pretty fucking awesome that my father was more or less helping me illegally. That he'd cut himself off from a Big Brother-like authority in order to get back to his real scientific passion. Membrane though his name still remained, the part of him that had always been called 'Charles,' rather than just plain old 'Professor,' was back. And I could get to know him.

Dad lifted his head, and showed a quirky but kind smile. It wasn't like anything Victor had been able to do, nothing at all like Ira's, but it was out of love. I had a weird sense of family, but I was kind of ready to allow Dad into the hodgepodge I'd been building up over the past couple years. "It's rather scary, you know," he said, "how much you remind me of myself."

"I'm starting to see the similarities, too," I admitted. I ran my hands through my hair nervously and heaved out a harsh sigh. "I just can't believe you knew. All this time, Dad, you knew about me being half Irken. You knew about my powers. You _knew..."_

"I knew," he agreed, "and I chose to forget. I never meant to, Dib, but my life really took an unexpected turn."

I slowly lowered my arms and gave my father a rather skeptical look. "Was that because of what I was saying just now?" I wanted to know.

"Was what because of what you were saying?" Dad wondered.

"What you just did," I restated. "You used my name."

"Did I?"

"Wait, you mean that was really just you talking?"

"I suppose so."

I froze, hating that my eyes were watering, hating that I was being so sentimental, but absolutely loving the fact that, for the first time in over ten years, my father had purely and honestly spoken my name. At that moment, he felt like my father again. He looked and sounded again like the man I once idolized. I bit my lip to stop the tears, then cupped a hand over my mouth, so I could bite it in case I choked. "That..." I began, hoping I could speak levelly, "really, Dad, you have no idea how much that means to me."

Dad sighed, and I saw guilt in his eyes. "I'm sorry," he apologized, still with honesty in his voice as he walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "Dib, believe me, I had no idea all this time how much I was hurting you with that," he admitted. "I was far too confused to see that what I was doing was wrong."

"God..." I choked, drilling the heel of my right hand into my forehead, then gripping my bangs, angry at myself still for letting tears flow. "For all these years, Dad, all I ever wanted was just for you to accept me... so now, when you say you always have, I..." I stopped myself from saying any more, since I didn't know how to end the phrase anyway.

Through my tears, I saw Dad smile, and that too was genuine. He really had become my father again. My mind slipped back for a moment to a time long past, when our family was whole. I remembered, when I was still very small, how once every week my father would either take me down into his lab or into his library and teach me something new. And I loved it, every time. I'd wanted at that time to be more like him, to learn everything I could about the paranormal, and make my parents proud.

"In a way," I said, when words came to me again, "I wish I was a kid again, so I could just go ahead and hug you and not feel embarrassed."

Dad laughed, deep in his throat, the way he had when I was very small. "You still are a kid."

"Dammit..." On a sudden impulse, I let myself go and hugged my father, glad to know that my family hadn't really fallen completely apart. "Thank you," I said shakily, "for coming back."

"You're welcome." And then my father said the one thing I'd been waiting sixteen years to hear: "I'm proud of you, Dib."

I drew in a deep breath, stopping up my tears, then let it out heavily and drew back, smiling at my dad, finally feeling glad again that I was even related to him. "Thanks," I said again.

"You're welcome."

I needed a moment after that, just to process, but eventually, Dad and I started making our way back, slowly, to the infirmary. As we walked, he asked me, "So... Alexandria...?"

"Lex," I corrected him.

"Quite right, she always did like the nickname." Dad grinned. Then nudged me. _"Lex,_ then?" he corrected himself.

"You are not allowed to give stupid commentary on my love life," I warned him. "Especially right now."

"But the love life exists?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes," I admitted. Then grinned myself. Huh. Yeah. That helped solidify it, too. I loved her. ...I admired her, and cared about her and just plain... loved her. And right now, she needed me. "We're dating," I confirmed again, "but really, Dad, right now..."

"No, no," he said, waving it off. "Believe me." He sighed. "Let's just hope Ira's getting Victor into a slightly better state..."

"Yeah, no kidding."

Before we could make it fully back, Charlotte burst in from the front area of the building, gave a quick upward nod to my dad, but beelined it to me, saying, "Tak's Elite retreated."

"AGAIN?" I roared, furious at the Irken again. Honestly!

"She only left one of the Commanders, or just Invaders, or whatever they're called," Charlotte said in a rush. "Skutch, he's the head, right?" I nodded. "Thing is, we've been tracking, I even found that GIR thing and sent it around. We have no idea where he is."

"So, possible sabotage?" I guessed. Great.

"That, and there are a few unaccounted for, no living or dead bodies to be found. Which is why I'm so glad I just found you, that's good. Your sister's in the front with Tenn and Tallest Red, doesn't he look pissed as hell about something—" when didn't he?— "Victor and—"

"Victor and Ira are here," I told her. "Ira's treating him now. So if it's all right, I want to postpone a wrap-up meeting."

"We'll have to anyway," Charlotte said straightforwardly.

"Why?"

"Zim's still missing, too."

Oh, shit. So each time they came, they were going after the head of the army? Well, I mean, and me, but they hadn't gotten me yet. And Zim wasn't stupid enough to let them kill him, right? If anything, he was probably giving Skutch a good fight. "Okay," I said, "you get a search party together, and put Tenn in charge, got it?" Charlotte nodded. "I've just got to check on Victor again real quick, and then I'll go check on my sister. What's Red pissed about?"

"I can't make out anything, but he's being very stubborn."

"Fine," I groaned. "I'll deal with that, too."

Charlotte and my dad exchanged a brief hello before she left to delegate search party duties, and Dad and I returned to the infirmary room.

Lex leapt from her stool and rushed at me, clinging to me in a fast hug that I promptly and happily returned. As I smoothed back her hair and held her in a protective grip, she filled me in on Ira's progress. Victor was awake, but fading. Ira had apparently learned some of what the Meekrob could do just by researching the Irken databases while he'd had access to the _Massive_ (a kind way of saying 'while he was serving punishment'), and thought that, while I couldn't revive consciousness, I could slightly preserve it.

The long and short of it was, though, that the only way for Victor to fully recover from what had happened would be to rest. Absolutely no strain, no movement, nothing. We had to induce a coma. That was the best we could do for him.

When I approached the cot, he was lucid, but clearly not anywhere near a fraction of his best. Ira had advised him not to speak, and he showed little of anything but an intolerance to the pain I was sure he felt everywhere. Taking in a deep breath, I bent over and gingerly touched my hands to either side of his head. He'd received a shock, Ira told me, when he'd hit the ground. Too much of a rush of blood.

"So, just... what do I do?" I wondered. Where the hell was Nacea to give me instructions now...?

_And when I breathe away my strength I'll find you in the white beyond..._

"Just ease the pain," Ira instructed softly. "That's all. If you can let him in, even just a flash, on where your mind goes when you use your Meekrob skills, Dib, the emerging process won't be anywhere near as awful as it is for most recovering from a coma..."

"I can't just get him out?"

"Tell me if you think you can."

I didn't try. I knew I couldn't. Because that would be bargaining with his soul. The Meekrob respected life, and they respected death as a part of it. If Victor was meant to go, my skills would do nothing. If he was meant to heal over time, they'd aid that, too. Nacea knew that she was going to die, and accepted it. I just prayed, mostly to her, that this wouldn't be the last time I'd see my godfather conscious.

"Sorry, Victor," I whispered. "I'll try my best." He managed a slight smile, then let his eyes close. "Just focus on whatever you see, okay? See you soon."

Lex, who had been standing beside me, bent to kiss her father on the forehead. "I love you," she told him. And then, echoing me, she added, "See you soon."

I closed my eyes and concentrated. No sound, no static... just—everything. The hush of the universe. "That's infinity," I whispered to my godfather. "Focus on that, okay? And find your way back."

He was unconscious again.

I stepped back, and held Lex close. The only sound in the room was the steady pulse of the heart monitor.

Nothing I could do?

No... no, there was still something I could do. Skoodge was dead, but I could hunt down the person who'd sent him after Lex in the first place. There was still so much I didn't want to accept about the Irken DNA in my blood, but I became slightly more resolved in the inevitable. I'd take the Empire, in whatever way that meant, and see to it that Tak could never play her games again.

But that resolve was interrupted the moment Tallest Red burst into the room. Gaz was two steps behind him, but I saw his rage, and an apologetic look from her. Ira whirled to glare at him, but his sharp purple eyes went wide.

Red held up, in his left hand, the gem Tak had been wearing around her neck. My breath caught, and I had no idea how to react. Especially when Red announced, in the driest tone I'd ever heard:

"Time to go, Ira."

– – –

– – –

**Author's Notes:**

Wheeee~ I'm glad I got this one up! ^^ Sorry for the delay, it's been an off few days. We're into the latter portion of Part Three now… haha, this part is so long, but so full. Charles is back but Victor's gone (?)… and as for Ira… we'll see… :3

Thank you for reading~! ^^ See you again next **Saturday, February 4****th****; **it'll be a Zim chapter, yay~ :3

~Jizena

– – –


	24. Second Invasion 7: ReForged

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Zim's Records_

I took a hit from Skutch's weapon—currently a sword—and countered quickly, but I was getting slow. We'd been fighting for what felt like hours, and he still wasn't tired. I, on the other hand, was becoming more than a little drained. He smirked and came down upon me again: he struck out with his double-edged sword, which I managed to thrust out of the way by crossing my own two weapons as a shield beside me, but Skutch withdrew his weapon quickly, ducked under my hands, and rammed his elbow into my ribs, knocking me to my knees.

"What's the matter, Zim?" Skutch taunted, his weapon becoming a _manriki_ again. "Runnin' out of ideas?"

I picked myself up, catching my breath as best I could. My right arm had been stinging horribly for the last twenty minutes at the very least, but I kept a firm grip on my _sairedon_ nonetheless. "All you do is talk," I reprimanded, scowling at my opponent. I readied myself and lunged at him; he swung the _manriki,_ and it hit right in front of me, causing the earth to rise up from beneath me, and I was once again hurled backwards. I tried my hardest to land on my feet, but I stumbled back, stopping just before I could crash into a huge pile of rocks.

Skutch laughed and swung his weapon around, encroaching upon the spot where I'd fallen. He swung the chain twice, then, wrapping it around his wrist, attacked me; the spiked ball on the end of the chain hit me right in the chest, causing me to lose my breath for a minute. I struggled to breathe, then punched myself as hard as I could in the stomach to shock myself into being able to breathe again. Once I'd succeeded, I stood, but Skutch swung the ball around and hit me once more in the chest, knocking me back down to my knees.

"She was right. You did turn into an idiot," he scoffed, swinging the chain to keep up the momentum. I stood again slowly, and readied my weapons in as firm a grasp as I could manage. "You should just give up now. Your weapons have no range, and you're too fuckin' slow. I won! So listen up, I've got a couple options for you: die, and I'll go right on ahead and kill ya if you want, or come back with me. You used to fuckin' _be_ something, Zim! I'm not gonna beg. Come back and lead the Elite."

I coughed, spitting out some blood, and twirled my _sairedon_ out to their full length as I stood. "I'm not going back," I said firmly.

Skutch snorted. "You have strange priorities," he remarked. "All right... since you're not coming back, I'll have to kill you."

"Sorry," I said, readying myself. "That's not gonna happen, either."

"Stubborn human!" Skutch shouted at me, hurling out the _manriki._

The spikes cut into my left shoulder, causing me to let go of the _sairedon_ in my left hand. I cried out in pain and stumbled. Skutch just laughed and retrieved his weapon, swinging it out to the side so he wouldn't catch himself in the chain. "This is just getting sad," he said.

"I never said I was finished," I growled back at him.

Ignoring every burning muscle, every throbbing artery, every aching joint, I bent to retrieve the weapon I had dropped and lunged back at Skutch. Even though breathing was difficult, even though my stamina was pretty rapidly fading, as if I'd been running a marathon, I had to keep myself going. Head in the fight. I could rest up and get all those wounds looked at later. For now, I just had to somehow figure out how to beat Skutch. Just get him into a worse state than I was in, then... well, attempt to yell for backup, I guessed, and keep him around for information.

Skutch tossed the spiked ball in my direction again, but I took in a deep breath and dodged, then forced myself to get directly into the _manriki's_ blind spot—which was directly in front of Skutch himself. He shirked back, but I crossed my twin weapons under his neck like a scissors, which threatened to decapitate him within seconds.

"Oho_-ho!"_ he cheered. "That's more like it, bro, that's what I like to _see!"_

"Can it with the 'bro' crap," I snapped. "It's really, really annoying."

"Nuh-uh."

"Are you _seriously_ Tak's first choice for sub-Commander or whatever the hell you are?"

Skutch burst out laughing, and flipped into a backbend, from which he kicked his feet up in an attempt to knock the _sairedon_ out of my hands. I swept them down before he could, but failed to cut him. Once back on his feet again, Skutch twirled the _manriki_ over his head like a lasso, then dipped under it, stamped his foot down on a length he'd lowered just enough to give the ball momentum, and the spiked weight shot back over at me. I tried to catch the chain around both of my weapons, but they were too thin and too small—the desired effect of disarming Skutch was unachievable.

He saw what I was trying to do and hauled his _manriki_ back. "Not good enough!" he called over to me. "Did you listen to me earlier? Those things're weak!"

"Excuse me for not meeting your standards," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Fuck _my_ standards, bro, you're just worth more'n that!"

"Would you fucking shut _up?"_ I hollered.

Skutch shut his mouth, but his _manriki_ had plenty to say, and I narrowly dodged it yet again. So my _sairedon,_ at either length, were nowhere near good enough to provide a solid defense against Skutch's favored weapon, but they weren't much on the attack side, either. My only defense was counterattack; that was what was slowing me down. I had no other tricks up my sleeves, though, no other weapons, no Irken powers—not that I wanted them. I didn't... I didn't, I didn't, I had to keep telling myself.

My opponent wasn't utilizing any Irken technology other than his weapon, either, I came to notice. While some of the Elite, even in hologram, had visible PAKs, or at least the ability to make them visible, Skutch did not. His entire appearance was pretty perfectly human. His eyes and attitude gave him away, but still.

Oh—well, then. Maybe my defense was words. Skutch liked to talk; I doubted he'd like certain subjects.

"Hey, Skutch!" I shouted. "If you're such a great Irken Elite, why are you parading around looking human?"

"Hello?" he snorted. "I'm taller. I'm stronger. I'll take it." He hurled the weighted end of the _manriki_ at me again, and I stepped out of the way, darting a few feet closer to him.

"It was Tak's order, right?" I grinned. "How accurate is your human body, anyway? You got human weaknesses, Skutch?"

"Nope!" Skutch said triumphantly. "Human weakness is emotional."

"You're telling me you feel no emotional weakness whatsoever?" I chided. "None at all?"

"None at all, especially compared to you! Shut the fuck up and just fight me!"

He threw another attack, and I dodged to step closer again. "Why are you following Tak?"

"Already told you! Shut up! And get a stronger weapon!"

I held my hands out to indicate our barren surroundings. On the opposite end of the lake from the Corporation complex, scenery was limited, so anything that could be used as a potential weapon was far out of sight. "I'm not exactly rolling in resources," I pointed out.

"Use yours the way you're supposed to!" Skutch practically screamed at me. He was losing patience. Irkens get riled so easily, and Skutch, always wanting to be the best, was just about boiling over. Rage was not something this particular Invader could easily hide.

That comment, however, both intrigued and frightened me. If there was one person in the Empire I would trust to have a working knowledge of the ins and outs of Irken weaponry, that person was Skutch, even more than someone like Red or even Tenn, who had so much previous combat experience. Red had always had his hands full with political affairs; he probably didn't know everything there was to know about the Irken arsenal, since he had people for that. Ira probably did not care. Tenn—more likely than the Tallest, but her combat style wasn't very weapons-oriented. Skutch was the one to possess literally any weapon he could think of, and he was proficient in all of them, despite his preferences. So when he said that there was more my _sairedon_ could do, I wanted to listen.

"The way they're supposed to?" I repeated.

"Normal _sairedon_ can't change size," said Skutch, as if I should have known that all along. "That's not even what's special about those. Can't you fuckin' tell by holdin' them?

"Tell... what?"

"That they're not normal! Ugh, you're so infuriating right now!" Skutch swung his _manriki_ out toward me again, and this time, with his added rage, he got in a hit; I turned as quickly as I could to avoid too much damage, but it still hit.

In a really bad spot, too. He didn't hit my right arm exactly, but even grazing it with the tip of one metal spike set off an awful chain reaction through my body. The skin around the cut was still raw and dying, and therefore more brittle and fragile than any other part of me. Cutting into it, just a couple inches below the large wound itself, sent blood rushing—much too quickly through my heart, and as my pulse sped up, I started to feel dizzy.

The worse the dizzy spell became, the worse I started to feel. I began to take deep breaths to get a better oxygen flow going, but even that didn't do much. I heard and felt a whirring from the PAK's presence, and its voice—my own distorted voice—began to whisper something I could not understand into my mind. Something in ancient Irken.

Something my mind could not understand completely, but the part that did took control. My vision became like a half-curtain, as if my lids were slightly closed. Half of the world was black, dreamlike. The PAK had half of my vision, but was still allowing me a view.

_"Hello, again."_

_Get out,_ I tried, at the same time I felt my hands clench more tightly around my weapons.

_"Need a little extra strength, do you?"_

_ Sure, but not from you._

My right hand felt incredibly hot around the hilt of the _sairedon_. My left hand could very well have been freezing.

_"Do you know what it took, human, to forge the greatest weapon in the Irken Elite?"_

_ Shut up and get out,_ I told the PAK. Its words were making some sense, and my feet began to move forward. _Stop controlling me. Get out._

_ "To heat and cool is the standard requirement. Can we guess?"_

_ STOP IT._

Despite my protests, though, as my hands clenched still tighter, as hot and cold became more intense—heat in my right hand, a chill in my left—I found myself focusing on the PAK's words. What did it take to make any weapon? I couldn't remember. I knew that I had worked with Miyuki, creating various things, but she never let me touch the Tavis. Had I ever seen her work?

What does one do? Heat the metal, right? Intense heat to the point of liquification; the liquid metal is poured into a mold, and then cooled. As the PAK had said, the standard requirement.

_"Let me rephrase that."_

_ SHUT UP._

_ "What does it take to forge a Talisman?"_

Fuck.

My research with Skutch... there were three Irken Talismans, and a possible fourth. The first was the Cabochon, the second was the Mirror.

The third was a weapon.

_GET OUT._

"GET OUT!" I hollered, snapping my eyes shut.

The intense hot and cold died down, and when I blinked my eyes open again, I had full vision. Just in time to see that Skutch had shifted his weapon into a simple spear, and used it as a type of javelin to give himself a boost off of the ground—in a second, he'd kicked my weapons out of my hands, and as soon as he landed, he threw a punch, spinning the spear back into a small knife in his other hand.

I stopped the punch and threw him aside, but before I could make a run for my weapons again—despite my questioning whether I even should or not, if they had triggered such a response in my reawakened PAK—a black flash darted in front of me. I followed the flash around, back toward Skutch, where it leapt off the ground.

A cat—a black cat... MiMi. She sprang up onto Skutch's wrist and knocked his own weapon away, then bolted forward, only to spin back and glare at us. "HEY!" Skutch shouted at her. "What gives?"

"Your mission is incomplete," said MiMi. "You were to retrieve the Commander, on order of—"

"Fuck off, stupid robot!" Skutch hollered. "I can take care of this!" "You have had more than enough time," MiMi reprimanded him. "Regardless of outcome, your mission is bordering on failure."

"I'm workin' on it!"

Huh. Weird.

I noticed something about Skutch, at that point... it was something I could look back and see in his previous actions, as well. His heart wasn't in it. Not entirely.

And that sounds strange, talking about an Irken. An Irken in charge of an army of hundreds upon hundreds, at that. An Irken hand-picked by the (unlawful) Tallest to temporarily lead the Elite. His position detailed that Skutch showed promise, but his hesitation showed that he was not entirely convinced that Tak's way was the only one to follow.

I was not sure when it had come about, if it had been in the midst of our fight or even before, but Skutch was beginning to show doubts about his loyalties. His eyes were not quite as clouded, now, as they had been when he had arrived. The hypnosis was wearing off, somehow.

Skutch glared at me with what he tried to make look like utter disgust. There was doubt. Doubt, doubt, doubt everywhere. I wasn't the only one who saw it, either. MiMi's holographic red cat's eyes narrowed on him, but she did not approach, she did not attack, she didn't even turn her gaze toward me. She was studying Tak's soldier.

He crouched into a position to strike, but his stance was off. Or at least different.

"You have failed," MiMi stated.

"NO!" Skutch shouted. His eyes snapped back to the way they had looked during the first Invasion attempt, and his shoulders squared. Loyalty returned to his body language, though his face still showed some doubt. "I'm committed to this mission, so just back the fuck off!"

"Prove it."

"I will!"

His eyes focused on me directly. "So what's the brilliant plan now?" Skutch taunted.

"I don't have one," I admitted. "I just have a question."

"You _suck!"_ Skutch shouted. Honestly, for someone so rooted in his Irken pride, Skutch was, more than anyone I knew... well, for lack of a better term, _acting his age._ He looked around fifteen in his human form. Hadn't he said, back during the first Invasion attempt, that he was Tak's 'perfected experiment?' Exactly what had she done to him?

"What are you fighting for, Skutch?" I shouted at him. "Do you have any idea?"

"The—Empire—and..."

"Wrong answer!" I snapped. "I remember talking to you, not too long ago. You fight for yourself, don't you? Climb the ladder and once you get there you still climb higher. Where's that? Where's _that_ Skutch?"

"There's nothin' else, all right?" He winced. "Besides, what're you fighting for, huh? Gimme that answer, smartass!"

"The things I care about," I said easily. "The planet I want to call home, and the girl I love, and human freedom—"

"HAH!" Skutch spat. "That's a good one, bro! Your sword says otherwise!"

"Sword?" I said, confused. "I don't have a sword."

"Yeah you do. Check it out."

I whirled to stare at the spot where my weapons had fallen. MiMi stood in that spot now, having resumed her human hologram; there was no sign of my sairedon anywhere, but MiMi crouched, knees squatted, arms arched over in a catlike way... over an enormous broadsword. I could tell just from a look that its blades were Tavis.

_"Oh..." _my PAK began to drone into my head. My breath caught, and my head began spinning again. My vision blacked out for a brief second, but I blinked it back. Another blink—red—another blink—pitch darkness—blink back, a world of many colors—red—nothing—normal—red—red—_red—sharp, sharp red—_ _"You've chosen to take me up on the offer after all, human. A wise decision."_

_ I didn't decide anything._

_ "You wanted to be stronger."_

_ I didn't want you interfering._

_ "Be more specific. My turn."_

Once again, the PAK claimed control over my movements, and I felt myself striding forward. MiMi did not stand. I knew that I was glaring at her, but I was only half-aware of anything I was doing.

My right arm stung.

My back was burning.

I heard Skutch reclaim his own weapon behind me, and the clink of the _manriki's_ chain.

Everything around me, including the air, seemed to close in around the sword that MiMi was perched over. I couldn't recognize it, and yet I couldn't shake the feeling that I had seen it before. It had to have been more than the length of my entire arm—roughly the length of my two _sairedon,_ at full lengths, laid one in front of the other.

As I was making estimates on the size, I felt the onset of a flash—

_And then there it was._

_ In the Vortian prison, where I was being held captive until the verdict of my biased trial. The only things I was sure they were debating were modes of death, and how quickly or slowly they wanted me to die. The Vortian jury was biased against me for being a higher up in the Irken military, let alone an Elite at all, while the Irken Control Brains were sure to focus only upon the fact that the Tallest was dead, that I had been present, and that my weapon nearly had a life of its own, when it came to claiming other lives._

_ The fact that it had been retrieved to me must have cost some of my soldiers their lives._

_ Those who presented it to me now were two of the best. Red was one._

_ Tak was another._

_ The room was large and dismal, a grey so pale it dulled my otherwise red vision. I had been confined to a corner, my arms chained back into the wall, my legs and ankles bound. Electric bars banned anyone from getting within twenty feet of me, but the two Elites stood as close as they dared, and lay my sword down on the ground. They had been handling it delicately, wrapped in a black cloth, for neither of them could touch it directly without facing death._

_ It had been the only Talisman forged with a specific owner in mind, after all._

_ "Split it," I commanded._

_ Tak glared up at me with wild eyes. "Sir, if you do that," she said, "you'll—"_

_ "I'm aware. I'll reset. Split it."_

_ "Are you sure that's for the best?" asked Red._

_ "And make sure I don't find them again until things set in motion."_

_ "With the Prophecy?" Tak guessed._

_ "Exactly."_

_ "If you split this, the Elite'll—" Red tried._

_ "I don't care. SPLIT IT."_

_ "Sir, if you do, I'll hate you my entire life!" Tak screamed._

_ "I DO NOT CARE, TAK. I don't care for your opinions or your loyalty. Do what I say."_

_ Her eyes narrowed. "I already hate you."_

The flash ended, and I found myself standing over the sword.

But I wasn't afraid of it. I was more afraid of the fact that it didn't seem to scare me. Because a part of me was inviting it in. _What the hell is that thing?_ I wondered.

MiMi had scurried off, and now stood off to the side, studying me thoroughly. She was testing me, to see if I'd pick the weapon up.

_How did it get here?_

_ "It re-forged. I wanted it to."_

_ That doesn't make any sense._

"How the hell did that thing come back?"

I glanced over at Skutch.

His eyes were completely devoid of any outside will in control. He stood ready to fight me, but looked highly unsure. Tak's hypnotic influence was draining from him, just as my PAK's influence was beginning to overpower me.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's called—"

_"It's mine,"_ said the PAK. _"An extension of me."_ Against my own human will, I knealt to pick it up, and before I knew it, I was standing with that enormous weapon in my hands. I needed both hands to keep a firm hold, but still, my right hand felt hot, and my left cold. _"It took a sun's worth of fire and a world's worth of ice to covert it to this from what it had been, all for me. For us. The Irken Elite Commander. Only the finest, wouldn't you say?"_

Why was I listening?

I didn't want that kind of power anymore. I wasn't that person. I didn't want it, so why the fuck was I holding onto it? _Let go,_ I pleaded to both the PAK and myself. _Let go, this thing's evil, let go, let go—_

Then why did Miyuki give those _sairedon_ to me?

—This was a test. She gave me the Irken blade I'd wielded as the Elite Commander, split into two weapons until moments ago, to see how I would fare with it. Something about this damned thing had to do with my earning the next fragment of a human soul. Miyuki had incredibly strange methods, but I was starting to figure her out. She did want to help. She just didn't know how. Possibly due to the loss of her own soul.

That on my still slightly muggy mind, I took up the weapon into a better position to begin an attack, finding that I could hold it fairly well. I shuddered when I realized that that comfort could be attributed to muscle memory.

"You've seen this before?" I asked Skutch.

"MiMi, don't make me—" he started.

MiMi shot him another glare.

Skutch's eyes clouded over somewhat again, and he began to steadily swing his _manriki_ out to the side as he calculated his next move. "It's back," he said, his voice sounding much more hollow than it had a second ago. "That means you need to come back, too."

"I don't think so," I said. I heard the PAK laugh, but I ignored it. "Attack me now."

"I can't beat it—"

MiMi's eyes flashed.

"FINE." His motives were confusing me, and were quite possibly confusing him, too, but Skutch was playing the part of the obedient Irken soldier and brought more of that stubborn motivation to his next attack. He took a few steps forward, wrapped his _manriki_ around his right forearm, then spun fast toward me and shot the metal ball forward.

As it unraveled from around his hand, I read the specific destination, and ducked. Thinking fast, I shifted the new—or, newly re-forged—sword into my right hand, and, though it took a little more energy out of me, I straightened, and caught the chain around the blade of the sword. "Fuck!" Skutch shouted. He yanked back on the chain, but I twisted my wrist, turning the blade. The _manriki_ caught on the enormous blade, and with another swipe, I pulled the long weapon out of Skutch's hands.

"Failure," MiMi commented.

Although I considered that to be the end of the fight, especially given that Skutch hadn't made an immediate run to retrieve his weapon, I took a few more steps toward him. The hilt in both hands again, I struck out toward him. "It's over!" I declared.

"NO!"

Skutch winced and, before the blade could dig itself through his chest and back, he caught it, and instantly let out an anguished cry of pain. He took a slight step back to further distance himself from the tip, but his hands were still clenched firmly around the blade.

"Shit..." he panted. He was trembling, but he wasn't letting go. "Shit, shit... oh... fuck..."

"What the hell are you doing?" I shouted at him.

"Don't kill me with this thing!" Skutch asked. "Nothing's ever left once _Osdraken_ kills you!"

_"Osdraken?"_ I repeated. Instinctively, I knew what it meant. Most Irken weapons bore only the names of what they were, and _redon_ and _draken_ were two sub-categories of Irken blades, the prefixes _kai-_ being large in both respects and _sai-_ being small. _Os-_ was a prefix that was only used in ancient Irken times, for some of the very first incarnations of the army. Though the word for _Elite_ was different and stood on its own, _Os-_ was something of a heightened honorific. _Osdraken_ translated to _Elite Blade_ (of the specified type). Meaning that it was the only one.

Speaking the word seemed to, odd as it seems, wake the weapon up. In my right hand, intense heat; in my left, freezing cold, once again. "What is this thing?"

Skutch focused his attention on the very tip of the blade, then, taking in a deep breath, let go and took a step back. As if moving on its own... no, moving on an order from my inner PAK, the sword Skutch had apparently called _Osdraken_ thrust forward again; I took the steps necessary to go along with the action. This time, it went for his neck. Skutch cried out and grabbed the sword again to stop it.

His hands were ruined. Both highly sharpened edges of the blade were digging pretty deeply into his palms, and his blood ran red down the sides, and down along his skin. "Kill a human with this thing, you kill the soul," Skutch said, his voice strained. "Kill an Irken, the PAK's gone. How else d'you think you wiped out the Kalleck?"

_"I_ wiped out the Kalleck?" I yelped. I couldn't let go of the damn sword.

"Mostly just you. Ow, ow—_OW!"_

"LET GO!" I hollered. "Your hands are bleeding, you idiot, let go!"

"Weakness of compassion," MiMi commented.

"SHUT UP!" Skutch and I both shouted at her.

"What's MiMi doing here?" I demanded of Skutch.

"I guess I'm getting evaluated," he lamented.

And he had failed. That much was pretty obvious.

"Well, don't just stand there and wait for the bloodloss to kill you, let go!"

"No! I can't look!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" When Skutch didn't answer me, I asked in a different way: "What did Tak do to you?" That got him thinking before speaking. It got him to shut up for once, but at the present moment, I found myself pitying him more than anything. His hands were completely ruined, but he wasn't trying to do anything about it. I'd been watching his loyalty to Tak shift in and out... I had to believe it was a hypnosis issue.

If that was the case, though, where _was_ Skutch's loyalty directed? He didn't really care who the Tallest was, as long as they gave him a chance for promotion. Tak must have made a pretty damn enticing offer. Yes, he was a jerk; yes, he was completely self-gratifying in everything he did. But right now he was completely frozen.

"Skutch, what did Tak do to you?" I asked again.

"I didn't question her," he answered, much more quietly than he had been speaking. "None of us did. I'm stronger'n I was. I'm _stronger than I used to be! THIS WAS A FUCKING MISTAKE!"_

"Failure is still noted," MiMi said.

"Fuck..."

"What's Tak's aim?" I ventured to ask. "Why is she doing all these... experiments, or whatever? Answer me, Skutch! What's Tak up to and why are you following her?"

"JUST SHUT UP!" He let go of my sword and quickly rushed backward.

He stood, waiting for me to attack again, wincing, his palms severely cut and bloody. He looked down and ticked his fingers in a couple of times, just to test his movements. Then, looking up and over at me again, he asked, "You're dying, aren't you?"

How the hell did he know that?

I glanced at my right arm involuntarily, and noticed that my bandage had come loose. Mortified, I let go of the sword and let it fall to the ground. As soon as I did, my head spun again, and I felt so dizzy, I fell. My knees hit the ground hard, and I tripped forward onto my stomach. My right arm scraped against the ground, which sent several disconnected flashes through my mind, but I shook my head to regain both control and consciousness.

"OH, NO!" I heard a high, mechanical voice cry out.

Stiffly, I picked myself up, supporting my full body weight on my left arm, just to confirm who had spoken. I managed a smile. GIR had perfect timing. "GIR," I instructed the little robot, as he approached, "go back to headquarters, all right? Send help, you hear me? I can't make it back over on my own."

GIR cocked his head to one side, then looked over at the dropped_ Osdraken._ As soon as he saw it, his eyes flashed red, and he glared over at MiMi, who, in turn, shed her hologram, sped forward, and grabbed GIR's face with her claw-like appendage. "Make good on your design," she commanded.

"Still too soon," said GIR, blasting her with a laser shot from his eyes.

MiMi fell backward, flickered into her cat hologram first, and then her human one, with which she bolted over to Skutch, who had just managed to make his way back over to his own weapon. "The mission has changed," she told him. "You are to give a report." She grabbed him by his left wrist.

"Let go!" he snapped. "Just hold on one fuckin' minute."

He bent, and gingerly lifted his weapon, which had resumed its small, knife-like shape. Wincing again, he pocketed it. He glared over at me, and his eyes narrowed. He was still trying to figure out what to make of the situation. So was I. Skutch's hands looked like they were beyond saving. The skin peeled back; they had not stopped bleeding. I had no idea how he could still be standing.

"The offer's still open," I found myself saying to him. "If you're bleeding, part of you's human. If you don't have any good reason to be with Tak, you could join us. The same thing happened to me."

"Yeah? But just how long're you gonna stay loyal here, Zim?" he shot right back. _"Osdraken_ re-formed. You're dying. You've got a tight choice."

_"A choice so easily made."_

"Get _help,_ GIR!" I instructed again. GIR saluted and rocketed off to the other side of the lake. No sooner had he done that than MiMi disappeared, taking Skutch with her.

Now it was just me and that monster of a sword, _Osdraken._ A sword that still remembered the fire and ice that had forged it. The third Talisman mentioned in the Irken Prophecy, the words to which I did not know. I was connected to it—rather, it was connected to my past. It had everything to do with the time I had served as Commander, everything to do with my exploits and conquests. And, more than likely, several things to do with Miyuki.

I just had no idea what it was.

Or if it would change me.

Exhausted and dizzy, I passed out. The last thing on my mind was knowing that whoever found me would find that sword as well. And not only that, they would discover the weakness on my arm. They'd discover the decay.

Skutch was probably about to be brought up against Tak for his visible questioning of loyalty.

I was probably about to face something similar. And I didn't know what kind of defense I still had.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Heyo~ Ummm, so this is where things start to get a little weird… ^^; But bear with me! Explanations for what the hell just happened are on the way. XD Zim's past is going to start being the big focal point starting here, so… I'm getting excited… :3 And with his past comes a lot of stuff for others, too.

We'll be seeing the result of last week's and this week's chapters next time… ^^;

See you all next **Saturday, February 11****th****!** :3

~Jizena~

– – –


	25. Aftermath: His Own Voice

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Gaz's Records_

I had never seen Ira look so incensed and shocked.

Sure, I'd seen him fight with Red before, and the two had been at odds since they arrived at the Corporation, though Red had _appeared_ to have calmed down in recent weeks. This was, however, the very moment that I witnessed the two stripped down to the most basic qualities of their individual personalities: Ira's unconditional love for his fellow man, and Red's utter disregard for anything and anyone that wasn't... well... _him._ However comfortable he had become around us humans, however much he'd warmed up to my brother and his version of leadership (not to mention his stance on Irken politics), Red still had only one basic thing that he looked out for. Himself. He was used to getting exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, and now, Cabochon in hand, he had the means to get exactly that.

And he wanted Ira.

"Come on," said the Tallest, repeating his selfish intent. "We're leaving."

He held up the Cabochon—it dangled down in its fixture from Red's left hand, and the green gem glinted in the almost insultingly garish light of the infirmary. Ira stared at it, then instantly narrowed his eyes on the eager Tallest. But Ira was not the first one to acknowledge what it was.

"Is that the—" Dib started.

"I beat Tak," Red boasted, "but she's still out there. I have no idea what she's planning, but this Cabochon thing is all I need in order to fix everything and go after her. Come _on,_ Ira."

"Um, excuse me?" Ira refuted. "I'm working."

Now that he mentioned it, I gave myself a second to look around the room. Upon our arrival, we'd been pointed in the direction of the infirmary, though Agent Bloodrose, the one who had come running while Red had been yelling in the front room, all out of breath from her trying to contact every branch of the dorm heads (probably at Charlotte's request), had not elaborated on why. All she knew was that Ira requested to have the entire main infirmary room to himself, to only let in assistants if he required them. It wasn't until Red started putting up a fuss and Ira shut him out so firmly that I realized the person he'd been tending to was Victor Haynsworth. Also in the room were Lex and my brother, both in pretty raw states—Lex much more than Dib, understandably—and... hold on, that couldn't have been my father...?

Red didn't give me any room to speak. "You _work_ for_ me,"_ he scowled. Behind us, Tenn was nudging her way into the room as well, and the look she shot the rightful leader of the Irken Empire was not a flattering one. "I've gone way too lenient on you."

"No," Ira argued, "you have been _sensible._ And now if you still have any sense at all, you'll let me stay right here in this room so my friend won't die."

"Oh, excuse _me,"_ Red growled.

"Red—" I tried, firmly.

I had no sway. I couldn't use words the way Dib could. I was not a threat to Tallest Red... I was just some annoying human girl who happened to be related to Miyuki. He didn't give a thought about me at all, not the way he did my brother. I was going to have to make Red think twice about brushing me aside like that, but given my confusion over the current situation, I couldn't figure out how. "Shut up," he barked back at me, while advancing on Ira. "Now, see," he said to his reluctant partner, "this is funny, because a while ago, you were just _so_ convinced that all Irkens are just machines, so there is no reason for me to pity you anymore!"

"Oh, for crying out loud, Red, _let it go!"_

_ "STOP IT!"_ Lex screamed. All activity in the room ceased. The only sound was the heart monitor poised above her father's cot, and the whirring of other machines that appeared to be keeping him stable. "Can we not do this in here?" Lex went on. "Please. Please, it's difficult enough without all of this awful, awful yelling."

It took several gruelling minutes of pleading, convincing, arguing and bargaining, but eventually, a decision to hold a meeting was reached. As I should have figured, Dib was the one to eventually subdue Red, playing the Miyuki card at full threat. "You know I can just take the Empire from you any time I want," was his final stern warning. "We are having a meeting and we were going to discuss exactly what to do with that Cabochon."

Red was not going to be the first to leave. Nobody seemed like they wanted to make the first move. So my father did. I practically didn't recognize him... which was a sad thought, given that what made him indistinguishable from the media-recognized _Professor Membrane_ was the fact that he was showing his face. No high collar, no goggles. He resembled my brother enough... he even smiled when he walked over to me. "What are you doing here?" I asked him under my breath.

"I finally listened to reason," he told me. "I'm here to help."

"You're staying?" Mom sure could have taken a page from that right about now too...

"Yes."

"Okay," I mumbled. It was good to see him, but I had no idea how much I could celebrate the fact that he'd turned up, given the other circumstances around all of us. I had no idea what had happened to Lex's dad, and felt like I was counting down the seconds to when Red would just plain haul Ira away without a word. Not to mention the fact that I had no idea where Zim was. Plus, yeah, Dad's presence was just making me want more and more to hear another word from my mother. She'd be the one to shed light on... practically anything. Plus, given that whole 'lost soul' notion she'd brought up the last time she'd shown herself... maybe that could be resolved a little now that Dad was here. I couldn't think, though. I was having such a hard time figuring out how things were going to continue from here on out.

As we all filtered out, I realized I was afraid of too much. When I was younger, I feared so little; I took care of myself, I knew who I was, I didn't need anyone fighting my battles. Well, battles had never been quite this big—or literal—before.

Why did I still get the sense that Tak was orchestrating things? She had relinquished power to Red again almost too easily... that kind of action led me to instantly and confidently believe that she had built herself a following, regardless of her status as Tallest. But on what foundation? Creating human temp forms for her soldiers? That seemed—ridiculous.

I brought that up at the meeting once things really got going. It started off with Red just plain yelling, "I don't have time for this! Tak's getting a head start, so—"

"No one is going _fucking anywhere_ till we _discuss this!"_ Dib broke in, slamming both hands, palms flat, onto the table. A hush fell over the room, but I could still see Red's hot temper rising.

Ira was seated beside me, and I grabbed onto his wrist almost involuntarily. Victor lay in a coma... I didn't want to have to say any kind of goodbye to Ira. No matter how temporary the leave. Now that I had a net around me, I didn't want there to be any loose threads or holes. I wouldn't now how to repair them.

My godfather glanced at me and smiled; his eyes were Irken sharp as ever, but everything else about his stance and expression was sad. While I was sure he would fight for all it was worth, something told me that he had already resigned himself to the fact that Red was probably once again going to have his way. No matter what was said. Which was absolutely horrible.

Lex winced at the sound Dib's hands made against the table; I saw her trying hard not to crumble in her seat. The fact that she was holding on at all was impressive. Lex and her dad were close in a way I couldn't even begin to imagine, let alone even slightly relate to. I clung to my brother because he was the only family that had thus far mattered, but Victor had really raised his daughter—raised her right... something my own father was somewhat projecting that he wished he'd done. It was so weird seeing my father's face. It was almost distracting.

But I had to press on. I'd been the only one to witness the last struggle between Red and Tak. To see Red cut down to human limits (though this was a part I would be careful to omit while sitting so near him and trying to defend the need to keep Ira around), and to hear Tak's comment that had pushed him over the edge.

"So first thing's first," my brother continued. "Dad's here, so, um... hi and welcome officially and stuff. Should I even _introduce_ you, Red? What gives?"

"I really don't care," spat the Tallest.

"Okay, no, seriously, you are being more of an asshole than usual!" Dib shouted at him. "What's going on and how'd you beat Tak and just basically _what the hell?"_

"Red put up a really good fight against her," I cut in before anyone else could speak. Everyone gave me an odd kind of glare... except for the Tallest himself. His expression read, _Go on._ I tried so hard not to grin. While my brother was yelling, I figured it out. Red was the kind of person who would insult at will; that's just who he was. He'd undermine others' intelligence, metaphorically spit on others' ideas... whatever. Because it had been decided that he would be superior. Fine. That was just how things were cut out for him. So there were two ways to speak with him: one was to yell back until finally some semblance of an agreement was reached... another was to make absolutely everything seem like a compliment. Whatever I was going to say was going to hurt like hell, because just on principle I'm not a very suck-up-y, compliment-y person, but I had to give it a shot if it might save Ira. "I watched most of it."

"You shouldn't have," Red said firmly. That was a warning.

"It was too interesting," I decided on saying. "I couldn't really look away."

"Oh."

It could very well have been working. It was tough to tell. "It was mostly what Tak had to say that I'm trying to get around. She got away, yeah, but honestly I kinda expected she would," I continued. "She said something about the fact that she's just doing one big experiment, and that she's not just after Invasion, but _reconstruction."_

"Yeah and she also told me to kill my pity. Which is exactly why my partner and I are _leaving,"_ said Red.

_"Partner_ is such a laugh of a word," Ira reprimanded him. "Since when have you ever treated me as an equal _partner_ except when we're in front of the crowds, huh? Even then all you do is disagree with me!"

"Kill your pity...?" I heard Tenn mutter. Her eyes were focused downward as she concentrated on the words.

"Ira, you are not in any kind of position to contradict me!" Red shouted back across the table.

"I'm not in any position where you're concerned at all!"

"That isn't true!"

"Kill your pity...?" Tenn said to herself again. Her eyes widened.

"We are leaving and that is final!" Red declared.

"Shut up," my brother cut in. "You aren't going anywhere until you at least explain that Cabochon thing to me. Because we _are allies."_

"Hey, Red," said Tenn.

The Tallest growled at her before saying, "You address me as _Tallest_ Red, Tenn. I'm technically back in position."

"And I'm still _technically_ separated from the Empire, so I really still don't give a shit," the once-Invader barked. "Look," she continued, "you're an Original. I'm an Original. We're the ones that have to be concerned about the whole deal with the Talismans anyway, right?"

"Right..." Red prompted.

"So what the hell good would it do you to kill off the emotion that makes you different? Tak was playing you by saying that. Killing it off means wiping out the thing that sets you apart! Which would probably yank you right back out of position anyway. Actually _think_ about it. What would killing off that ability achieve, huh? And how would you even do it?"

Red was silent for a second. It seemed almost like Tenn had gotten through to him. Though, of course, Dib and I glanced, confused, across the table at each other. Tenn was going to have to fill us in something awful on everything she'd just been saying. Hopefully she could shed some light on the concept of Originals for us, not to mention the Control Brain system. She really was one of our best assets. Zim could probably contribute, too, but discussing the Empire in such detail seemed to depress him. Plus, I really was starting to get concerned about where he could possibly be. He couldn't still be fighting with Skutch...? I wanted to find him, and fast.

"Killing it off would be better than the alternative," Red finally muttered.

"What's the alternative?" Dib asked.

"You know. That thing that Zim is—"

"TREASURE HUNT!" The door burst open and in rocketed GIR. He erupted in on a bolt of blue rocket fuel and crash-bellyflopped onto the table, where he then flipped himself up onto his feet, rushed over to me, and grabbed me down by the collar.

"Hey!" I yelped.

"I lookeded _all over_ an' then I found it!" he screamed triumphantly.

"The hell're you talking about?" I said, shoving him away.

GIR started doing a little dance and began to sing, "I went on a treasure hunt, uh-huh!" Ira was trying not to laugh at the ridiculous intrusion... either that or the awful face that Red was making at the little robot for interrupting such an important moment. "Found me the treasure, woo, yeah!"

"What _treasure?"_ I demanded.

"One," GIR said, pointing to Red... or, more specifically, the Cabochon, "two..." he said more profoundly, pointing simultaneously at me and Dib, "three!" he finished, throwing his arms up into the air. He then pointed both hands out the door and screamed, "MAGIC NUMBER!"

"What... the _hell?"_ I growled at him.

Tenn, however, was continuing her Irken sleuthing, and pointed discreetly at Red, me, Dib, and out the door. "Three...?" she said under her breath. "Cabochon... what, Mirror, and...?" Tenn stood. "He found Zim."

GIR nodded vigorously, then screamed, "Come on, come on, come on! He's down, down, all the way down!"

"OH MY GOD!" I screamed. I did not want to think about what that could possibly mean. "Where is he?"

"Uuuuhhhhhhh..."

I stood up and grabbed the robot, shaking him viciously. "Where the hell is he?"

"LAKE!"

_"In it?_ Or just on the other side?"

"Come on," Tenn offered. "I got one of the Elite's ships. We'll go look for him."

"Uh—" Red started.

"The meeting will continue, Red," my brother warned. "You guys go. He's gotta be found anyway, and if we can get him in on this conversation, too, so much the better. Ira, you better go with them."

"THAT IS NOT—" Red tried.

"He's _going._ He's a _doctor._ We _need him. END OF DISCUSSION."_

I grabbed Ira by the hands, hauled him up to standing, and pretty much pushed him out of the room in front of me as I followed Tenn. I called back that we would be back as soon as we possibly could, while my brother assured me that the rest of the meeting would not be a waste. I was glad that Charlotte was up and around getting things done, but I did kind of hope that Cthulhu and Bloodrose could take over for her, since her presence in meetings generally helped them flow better. (One of Charlotte's best talents, I'd figured out, was being impervious to Dib's unique brand of stubbornness.)

Due to the fact that we had just survived our second Elite Invasion, things were understandably strained and stressful, but there seemed to be a lot more at stake this time. The first Invasion had seen Nacea and General Brakem die, and while this time there were casualties, much more stress and doubt was left in the wake of Tak's final comments to Red, and the fact that he held in his hand one of the three Irken Talismans.

The main thing I knew about the Talismans came from our early discussions with Red and Ira (back when we had called him 'Purple,' as per his punishment, or what have you), as well has snippets of things I heard from the Irkens among us at various times. Not to mention Dib, and his experiences with our mother on his fourteenth birthday. Now that over a year had passed, we were in a slightly better position to oppose the Irkens, but there was still a lot to sort out before Dib or I could really do anything.

Miyuki's objective—once for herself and now for us—was Irken liberation. To rid the PAK-dependent society from total reliance on machines to run minds and squander emotions, and allow the society to be more free-thinking. Along with this would have to come a radical change of leadership policies, which was really where we had to step in. Red seemed to be rooted in whatever Irken tradition really was... which, from what I gathered, had a lot to do with the Control Brains.

God, whatever it was that had to happen... it was going to be like pulling teeth. We had to get around Tak. To get around Tak we needed Red. Red was being a stubborn asshole. He was yet another obstacle.

I had no time to think about obstacles now, though. My heart was pounding like crazy as the three of us, GIR running on up ahead and around us and everywhere (adding an enormous amount of unnecessary chaos to the situation). I always took whatever GIR had to say kind of, well, simply and lightly, but I did not like what he had said about Zim having gone _'all the way down.'_ Every once in a while, GIR would make sense. Those times, as I would begin to realize, were all fairly terrifying. He had mentioned something during the Incident that began to bother me again now: _"It's too soon anyway."_ I shouldn't have ignored that comment. I really shouldn't have.

Thank God for Tenn, though, no matter what was going on. She kept a level head at all times, and was providing more and more insight into Irken affairs for us, which was wonderful. She was also the perfect pilot for the ship she had discovered—she led us a few yards away from the headquarters building, and as the sun set around us, she beckoned me and Ira into a moderately-sized unit she referred to as a Shuvver. Its size was equitable to a sixteen-wheeler here on Earth, but unlike those highway hogs, the ship was sleeker, and had a more vertical design, allowing for it to be comprised of an intricate computer system while still having cargo holds and plenty of room for passengers. Not to mention the lofty headroom, which was _very_ nice indeed, considering that it was an Irken vehicle, and I hadn't stood at near-Irken height now for quite some time.

As soon as we were on board and taking off to get to the other side of the lake, though, Ira crumbled and sat against a wall with his head in his hands. "Ira, you okay?" I asked him.

"Ugh," he groaned. "Today has been a headache." He lifted his head in order to smile at me, then slowly began un-braiding his hair and letting his long purple bangs out of confinement. "I'm sorry, Gaz," he went on, calming his tone. "I wish there were more that could be done about Red."

"You're not going back with him," I said firmly.

"I hope that's true," my godfather said, his voice wavering somewhat. "I really hope that's true."

And then, before I knew it: "We're here," Tenn announced.

"I found it again!" GIR screamed. He rushed to the back of the Shuvver, past where I sat beside Ira, and pressed a little button on the wall that caused the cargo bay door to swirl open in a circular fashion. Watching it open was hypnotic, but passed so quickly it made me somewhat dizzy. It didn't help that the coloring inside the Shuvver kind of made me ill—dulled reds and garish purples that bordered on confused sorts of grey, congealing into matte black and coarse greys and silvers here and there, and in no discernable patterns.

"I'll be completely fine if I never fly again after this, too," I heard Ira say primarily to himself as I walked arm in arm with him out onto the cracked, arid ground that gave us its ghostly welcome on the other side of the lake.

"You're no good with ships?" I guessed.

Ira almost smiled. "Your parents could probably attest to my unease on airplanes, way back when," he told me. "I'd have probably gotten sick on the _Massive_ all this time if not for... well, certain things, but..."

"We're not gonna talk about that," I said for him, quickly. Still, I couldn't shake the fact that tonight wasn't going to end well. Red was in an awful mood. Ira was drained from trying to help Victor. Dib was conflicted between too many things, and I could see it in him, even back in the meeting room: he wanted to focus so much of his attention on Lex right now, to support her now that her father lay in a coma, that usual things were getting to him more. Dib was great at doing a number of things, when focusing on them individually, but an intelligent multitasker my brother is not; never has been. He does best when focusing on one thing at a time, giving small attention to other details here and there. And so far, the Corporation was able to run like that. Now, things were heating up. Almost too much; definitely too fast to handle.

Even with the sun setting, we were fortunate with the fact that we were much more of a retrieval crew than a search party. This side of the lake was blocked off from what lay beyond us just as well as the other, and was open, though rocky. There was still enough sun in the sky to clearly make out the points of freshly disturbed ground from the fight, a few scorch marks and cuts in the rocks and dry ground from Skutch's versatile weapon. And blood. Plenty of spilled blood.

We followed a trail right to Zim.

I screamed and darted forward, but Tenn and Ira held me back. "What're you doing?" I shouted. "Let me go!"

"That isn't his blood," Ira said calmly. "Look at the way it splattered, against the way he's lying. That is not his blood, it's all right."

"Well, maybe not," I realized, "but look at his arm!"

Zim had collapsed face-down. His upper right arm was in a terrible state—the skin looked raw or even dead, from what I could see under his unraveling bandage. Blood leaked down from it, but it was not linked to the trail; Ira was right. That only meant that the bloodstains a couple feet away were from Skutch... which in turn meant that he had the same color blood as us humans; he didn't bleed green like the rest of the Irkens on the battlefield. I wondered, for a second, what color Red's blood would be. Then shook Red out of my head completely; he didn't deserve room in my mind right now.

"Is he conscious?" Tenn wondered.

"Hard to tell from here, and in the light," said Ira, "but I'm going to go ahead and guess not."

Just then, GIR darted forward, grabbed something from behind Zim, and rocketed back to hold it up to us: a sword. An enormous one at that. Something I'd equate to a broadsword, but inarguably made of Tavis. GIR held up the hilt with one hand and the huge flat blade with the other. It seemed to glow a little, ominously, and the bloodstains that ran down from the tip seemed so natural it frightened me. For all the video games I've played, for how much fighting I myself did with Tavic weapons, I still couldn't wrap my head around the idea of weapons having personalities. Until this thing. This thing, clearly Irken in design, was out for blood. Had some; wanted more. The worst part was, I doubted it was something Skutch or any of the other Elites in Tak's army had left behind.

I really wanted a word with my mother.

"Dammit," I heard Tenn say. "Gaz, I think I've gotta catch you up on something Zim probably hasn't told you." I heard Ira sigh out on a hum, almost as if in agreement. I think that we were both equally disturbed by my godfather's vast knowledge of Irken Empire affairs and statistics. Ira would rather not have known... but his years of service had probably driven him to more research into that other world than he had ever have cared to.

"What?" I wondered.

"I don't think now's a good time for storytelling," said Ira. "We need to get him inside."

"But what the hell _is_ this thing?" I wondered, reaching down toward it.

"Don't touch it!" Tenn shouted. I jerked myself back to give her a questioning look, and Tenn just shook her head. "I really wouldn't. GIR's the only one who should be handling that thing right now. I'll fill you in once we go inside."

I agreed that that was for the best, though the sword's existence did bother me. As well it should have, given Tenn's reaction; even Ira's. I didn't like it. I didn't like that it had something to do with Zim, either. I was practically in tears as the three of us hoisted him—unconscious as predicted—onto Tenn's captured ship, and as we took the very short trip back over to land in front of the headquarters building, I held Zim gingerly in place, keeping his head on my lap and making sure his right arm was upturned. I smoothed back his matted black hair and felt cold sweat on his forehead. He was in awful, awful shape.

I really wanted to give Invader Skutch a piece of my mind. Tak even moreso.

When we got back inside, I could hear Dib and Red still arguing, and now Lex and my dad were sitting outside the meeting room in a couple of folding chairs they must have brought out. Oh, this was not good. Ira shivered, nodded something that looked like an apology over to Dad and Lex, then continued with us into the auxiliary infirmary room.

GIR hoisted the enormous new weapon up onto a counter on the side of the room by the door, while I clicked all of the lights on to give Ira a better idea of what to do. "Cut his shirt off for me," Ira instructed me as he pinned his bangs back again and began scouring the cabinets for the supplies he would need.

"What?" I wondered. "Why?"

"I really don't like the look of his arm, and I want to see if there's any more of that irritation anywhere else on his upper body. Why on Earth didn't he tell us about this?"

Simple: he was either too afraid or too proud. Or both. Zim had the kind of mentality, even as a human, that he'd do things for himself once it came down to it. He'd joined the Corporation and asked for our help, he had offered his services and was reporting directly to Dib with the job he'd been given, but when it came to the matter of him being human... that seemed like such a personal matter. He wanted to be human, but he wasn't explicitly asking for help on how that could come about.

Ira advised me to put on gloves, so I did, even though it made me feel like I was about to perform open heart surgery or something, and then carefully cut through the fabric of Zim's shirt, afraid of what I might see underneath. I tossed the shirt away first, then undid the already loose bandage around his arm. And immediately had to back away, afraid I'd hurl.

I did the first thing I could think of: I tossed off the gloves, ran to the sink on the far right-hand side of the room, scrubbed my hands clean twice, dried them off on my skirt, then held my hands over my nose and mouth. The scent of the soap was much too harsh and stung my eyes, but I was already on the verge of crying over what I'd seen.

Why _didn't_ Zim come to us about this? Knowing that he'd sometimes shut off and not really discuss what he was doing was one thing... knowing that he'd hide something as serious as a wound that looked like it was threatening to just sever his arm from his body was another. I didn't want to know what else he could possibly have been hiding.

Lucky me. I was about to find out.

Tenn wrote out a note that she sent with GIR (since he himself was not the best messenger when delivering anything in the form of speech) to my dad, just so somebody would be in the loop on what we were doing and what was going on. The instruction was not to tell Dib or Red... just let them argue through whatever it was they needed to vent out against each other. By the time GIR had taken off down the hall, Ira had gone through the process of washing off Zim's skin and was now pondering over that awful, raw upper arm.

The skin around Tak's original dagger wound looked like it was in a state of decay. Some of his skin looked like it had been charred in a fire, and those particular points glinted almost green in the harsh light. It could have been disease, or it could have been resurfacing Irken pigmentation; I couldn't tell, and I didn't want to know. The corruption itself was spread from a few inches above his right elbow to just below his shoulder, with the skin around the wound looking worse than any other point.

When I dared to look over again, I saw that Ira had bandaged up a couple of cuts in Zim's side from some kind of bladed weapon or other that Skutch would have utilized, and there was a long, thin scratch across his chest, becoming slightly thicker just over his heart. Probably from the chain of Skutch's favorite weapon, I theorized. And where'd he gone off to, anyway? Just left Zim for dead—I would have thought Tak would want him carried back with them, wherever she and her followers were going now.

Tak seemed even more formidable now that she wasn't the Tallest. Because I was just so damn sure that she had an army all the same. That was what she'd been spending all this time doing. She was attacking the system from within, playing off of the weak points of the current Tallest—not to mention me and Dib as well—in order to take over for good in a final wave. And it seemed, from this most recent attack, that she was reliant on either Zim or Dib to complete whatever her goal was. In other words, she needed someone stronger than herself... but it had to be someone she could manipulate. God, she really was just experimenting and playing games! Everything she did was calculated. Everything she did was underhanded. Everything she did was all for her own selfish gain. Whatever the full Prophecy was, she knew it. And she was playing against it, by understanding the Talismans (I _had_ to get Tenn to tell me more about those) as well as the Empire's history. Plus her little perfected methods of combining Irken and human strengths into a single body. The hybrid soldiers she'd enlisted were tougher than regular Irkens: human strength without human emotion. Or so it was supposed to be. This deal with 'Originals' seemed to be something that could work in our favor... Irkens who were already human enough, and could be pushed further in that direction by receiving temp forms.

That was what Zim was aiming for, and what Red seemed to be afraid of.

Ira continued his work for a few minutes longer, then turned to me, concerned. "What's wrong with his arm?" I dared to ask.

"I hate to say this, but right now, I can't completely tell," said Ira. "There's dead and, excuse me, rotting skin around the wound. If this were a normal case, I'd suggest immediate amputation—" I felt like I was going to hurl again, but Ira caught and steadied me, continuing more quickly, "but we don't have a surgeon around and I highly doubt this is a run-of-the-mill kind of problem."

"Then what do we do?"

Now I really was starting to cry. Things were looking darker and darker. I finally had people I trusted, people I enjoyed being around... and they were leaving me. I felt like it was a matter of seconds before Red would snap and take Ira away. I had no idea how long it would take for Victor to wake up or for Lex to recover. I had no idea how long Zim would be unconscious, or what was happening to him.

And I cared so much it was ripping me apart. I had never felt like that before. Growing up, I'd always been alone, and taken care of myself. When Dib was gone for three months on Meekrob, I first started feeling that kind of awful separation. Zim had been gone at the time, but I'd had hope he'd be back; the ring I'd found on my thirteenth birthday had just made that hope stronger. Now Zim was here, and human, and trying to make that permanent... but I'd seen him black out before. I'd seen him struggling with the Irken a part of him still was. I didn't quite want to slap the word 'love' onto what I felt, but I wanted to try.

As I stood there, finding myself hugging Ira the way a frightened child might cling to her father, I couldn't take my eyes off of Zim. I stared at his arm and at his cuts and tried to envision the fight he'd just had. And I thought of all the times I had seen him fight so far... every single time, he'd been protecting me. "I'm sorry," I heard myself start whispering. To Ira and Zim both. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"Calm down, Gaz," Ira said softly, stroking my back. "You don't need to be."

"I feel like I haven't been doing enough!"

"It's okay. You're doing just fine." Ira patted my hair gently and said, "I'm very proud of you, Gaz. I wish I could have seen you grow up. You've become an incredible person, dear, don't let go of that."

"I have no idea what I'm supposed to do..." These were all things I never would have said aloud, had I not been under such stress. The final fight was looming, I knew it. I didn't feel ready. I didn't want to be. There was still too much I didn't know. There was still a lot about myself I had to figure out. And then there was the irrefutable fact that I did not want Zim to go anywhere. I didn't want him gone, I didn't want him switching sides on us—a latent fear that was rearing its head now—and I did not want him to die. Of the few people I trusted so intently; God, I didn't want any of them to die. I certainly didn't want to see it happen.

"It's all right," Ira soothed me, "it's all right. I know you have it in you to rise above anything."

"Thank you."

Ira smiled, then stepped back and said, "Listen, there's something else I could do that might be able to help Zim a little. I need to grab a few things in the other room, though."

"You're not going there alone," I said. "But—"

"But you don't want to leave him alone, either, do you?" Ira guessed. I shook my head. "He really loves you, you know," he told me. I managed to smile and nod. "Why don't you stay here? I doubt he'll wake up in the next couple of minutes."

"I'll go with Ira," Tenn offered. "If Red tries to—what do you guys say?—fly off the handle, I'll step in."

"Thanks, Tenn."

"Don't mention it."

"We'll be right back," Ira assured me.

The moment they were gone and the door closed behind them, I cautiously stepped up to the cot Zim was laid out on. He looked a little better now that Ira had washed all of the blood away, but that arm was still bothering me. I wondered how awful the crossed scars on his back might look, now, too...

Suddenly, with a gasp, Zim opened his eyes. I yelped a little, since Ira had considered this improbable, and jumped back, unsure of how I felt about this sudden return to consciousness. Zim tried to sit up, then cringed right off and lay back down. He stiffly tried to move his right arm, was unsuccessful, then groaned and held his left hand over his face. "Oh, God..." he started saying under his breath. "Goddammit... get out... get out, get out..."

"Me?" I wondered.

"Eh?" Zim lowered his hand, and then his deep brown eyes found me. "Gaz!" he exclaimed. His face showed nothing but terror. He propped himself up on his elbows a little, though wincing throughout the action, then stared at his decaying right arm, then back over at me. "Did you—"

"Tenn and Ira and I brought you back over," I began explaining, my words running nervously out of me. "GIR knew where you were, and you were passed out, and there was this huge sword thing and—"

"Where is it now?" Zim wondered. I pointed to it, and his eyes flared wider open. "I can't be near that thing," he said frantically. "Gaz, I can't be anywhere near that thing! What've you seen? What—"

"Zim, I don't know what you're talking about!" I cried. "I'm getting really worried! What are you talking about?"

Before he could answer, Zim let out a slight yelp of pain and lay back down. He grabbed at his bangs with his left hand, then insisted, "Get out, get out, get out... not here, not with her... just get out... get out, _OUT!"_

"ZIM!" I screamed.

But he'd fallen silent. My heart stopped, then started up again very, very cautiously. I took a cautious step toward him, even though every instinct told me that was wrong. Where were Ira and Tenn? Had they heard us? Had anyone heard me scream?

My voice was shocked right out of me, though, the next time Zim spoke.

Very rigidly, he began to lower his hand. "Out?" he said. The voice had come from him, and it was reminiscent of his normal tone enough, but not enough to convince me that it was really his. Too many things were off. "But I'm just getting comfortable."

I backed away, not wanting to know what was wrong. He picked himself up slowly, then turned his head in my direction, fixing his gaze on me. I heard something whir.

Earlier that day, I had seen my own brother fall victim to the Irken parasite known as the PAK. The scars on Zim's back proved that his PAK was still somewhere inside him, but thus far its presence had not quite reached to the extent of actually taking over. I was instantly afraid, as much as I didn't want to be. I knew that Zim had blocked out a huge chunk of his past. I wondered if his PAK remembered... even though I didn't want to know. I wanted the Zim that had been there during the Incident; the one I didn't mind holding, or kissing, or just plain talking to. The one who seemed so honestly human.

Right now, though... it was like that person didn't even exist.

His eyes were red.

Blood, blood red.

That wasn't Zim. Not the person I knew, not even the Invader he'd tried to be once. This was someone I'd never seen before... or, at least, not to this extent. He was hardly 'new.' Something told me that, whoever it was that sat up, whoever it was that glared right at me, whoever it was that had changed Zim, was someone who long outdated the person I so often forgot was not completely human yet, but who wanted to be. This person, whoever he was, whatever fragment of Zim he was, did not care for humans at all. That much was pretty obvious, from the malicious grin. From the way he studied me the way a cat studies a mouse.

Zim had promised to protect me. This person probably wanted me dead.

"Well," he said, his voice still a distortion of Zim's normal tone, more cutting and much less full of life, "hello."

He slid off of the infirmary bed, his feet rocking to the ground with the ease of a practiced silent soldier, and slowly, vertebra by vertebra, straightened his back, until he tilted up his head and drew in a good, long breath. He stretched his right arm out before he held it up; he examined first his arm, fresh with that awful area of raw, dead-looking skin, then brought up his hand and studied it with a great curiosity. He flexed out his fingers and then formed a fist.

And then he began to laugh.

It came from deep in his throat. Not the way that Zim laughed; not the person he'd been lately, at any rate. No, this was brutal. Brutal, and selfish. Dark would be an understatement. It was a killer's laugh. And I don't mean just someone who has killed—this person was someone who enjoyed it. Who thrived in it. Who did it to prove a point; that point being that he _could._ He didn't care who. He didn't care why. He just did it.

If I could read all that much from him, just from that, I shuddered knowing that he'd soon start talking again, revealing more of himself. I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to hear any voice come from that mouth but Zim's. I didn't want to see any color in those eyes but brown. But Zim was gone.

Somehow, I'd always known I'd lose him. Maybe that was why I could never say anything. Because I'd been too afraid.

If I had to put a face on fear...

"Oh..." he grinned, lowering his right hand again and cracking his head to either side, "this is interesting." He spread his arms out to either side, and continued his revelry, still laughing at a rush I couldn't imagine. "Oh, this _is FUN!"_

I wanted to scream. I couldn't. I just couldn't.

Where the hell were Ira and Tenn?

As afraid of this person as I was, I could not look away. I was afraid that if I did, something awful would happen. At least, if I could see it coming, I might be able to—do what, save myself? I didn't know. I couldn't tell. This just did not feel real.

In my head, I began to call him a nightmare.

"My dear," he addressed me in the most disgustingly condescending tone I had ever heard escape from that mouth, "I don't believe we've met." His red, red eyes found me, and his dark grin stretched. There was nothing in his tone that told me he was expecting an answer.

With an erratic tick, his head jerked to one side, and I heard his neck snap, causing me to let out a little involuntary scream. A scream that set him off.

His neck snapped back, and he rolled his head once—dear God, he was adjusting to his human body. Re-adjusting? Adjusting... because that person was not the one we'd brought in. "No...?" he said, as he took a single step toward me. If his reasoning was to get me uncomfortable, he was successful. I took a step back, every one of my instincts screaming for me to run away. Run away. Run the hell away.

He took two more steps toward me, each and every one of his moves overdramatic, going from erratic to fluid the more he moved around. "Oh, no, no, I know who you are," he continued, as if I'd given him a vocal answer. All I'd managed to do was back myself up even further. "We've met... we've just never been properly acquainted."

"You go first, then," I managed to get out. My voice sounded awful: raw, like I was on the verge of tears I knew weren't actually there. Worst of all, I gave myself away as being terrified. I hadn't even noticed that he was still advancing on me, since my senses were otherwise paralyzed. My back hit the wall.

I was trapped.

"Oh, are you challenging me?" he asked. He was upon me in a second, and pinned me to the wall. I wanted to wake up.

"Let go," I whimpered; I'd never felt so helpless.

"I do not take orders," he growled, "I give them. Now," he said, moving one hand slowly to my neck until he was nearly choking me, "I have a few questions for you. You are going to answer them."

"Who are you?" I demanded.

His eyes narrowed, harsh and red, and he snarled, "I don't come across many like you. Then again, you're her heir, aren't you?" A grin stretched across his face. "Oh, you _are!"_ he deduced. "Well, now... this _is_ going to be quite the introduction."

"Get away from me," I tried. Losing battle—this was nothing but a losing battle, but I could not cry. I could not cry in front of this person. Not show any signs of intimidation. Fuck. Forget Ira and Tenn, where the hell was _Zim?_ I did not want to believe that Zim had somehow turned on me, had somehow become so lost in his dark, forgotten past that I would never again hear love in his voice or see it in his eyes. Especially now... now that I'd been so ready to accept that kind of thing in a little more. Help more to hold him up the way he'd thus far been supporting me. I missed what we'd had during the Incident. I adored what we'd shared on my birthday.

He'd promised that he would be something, someone, I could always rely on. That was all I wanted. Someone who wouldn't change, someone who wouldn't go away. Something constant. I had never had anything constant in my life. Please, I kept on begging, please let that be him. Even before my bond with my brother had grown, I know that I had shared something with Zim. Even just a little bit of common ground. When I'd discovered that, I hadn't wanted to be alone anymore.

Who the fuck was this person, and how dare he threaten that chance...?

"Who _are you?"_ I growled.

"Insistent, aren't we?" he sneered. His hand still firmly clenched around my throat, he leaned in. His breath was hot against my left ear. His words were ice cold. "I," he hissed into my ear, "am disconnected memory. Half of a whole."

"The other half's Zim?" I guessed, shuddering away from his discomforting tone.

"A simple thought, on your part," he mocked me. The fact that he still hadn't given me a name was terrifying. "You see, _Zim_ is nothing but a name," he continued, his eyes and mine met once again. "Names are useless to those with titles. Especially names that have been so tainted and twisted."

"Maybe I like that name," I said. How the hell was I holding myself up so well? All I wanted to do was collapse and maybe take six sleeping pills and not wake up for another month. I just did not want to have to deal with this.

He shoved me back against the wall even further, and slammed his left hand against the wall beside my head. "Don't you play with me!" he warned. While Tak could be formidable, this person was just plain frightening. He was several times more terrifying than Tak or even MiMi. Than any threat I'd ever thought of before.

Wait a minute.

This was much too familiar.

Zim had done this to me before. During the Incident. Held me against the wall and spewed things at me about the Irken Empire that made me think that he was just having a terrible Irken mood swing. His voice had been in its regular human tone at that point... but, no... no, it was this person who'd been doing the talking.

He just had his own voice now.

"You're... you're the sixty years he lost," I realized, my eyes going wide. I felt myself lose more strength, now that I was making myself stare him straight back in the eyes. I saw my self reflected in his blood red eyes. And I trembled.

"Clever, clever, clever!" he laughed at me. "I was perfection once. I locked myself away only as long as I needed to. But, my dear, my other half has been re-forged, and I _will_ take action again."

"So you're the Elite Commander?"

He grinned. "I am. Now, where is it?"

"Where's what?"

"My sword. _Osdraken._ Memory frozen in flames..."

"None of you Irkens ever makes any sense," I managed to say. But at least now I knew something slightly promising: the sword we'd found beside Zim had been the reason for this reawakening of his old memories. As long as he stayed far away from that weapon, maybe we could subdue the Commander's influence... maybe now, and once I learned a little more about those Talismans, I could help Zim so much more... assuming I could get him back today.

The Elite Commander narrowed his eyes. Zim's eyes, turned bloody and cold. "You really don't want to oppose me," he warned, slowly letting go of my neck.

"Where's Zim?" I demanded.

"Gone."

_"WHERE'S ZIM?" _I screamed. When the Commander reared back and let go of my neck, fully intending to strike me, I put up my best defense, wound up, and punched him in the arm. His right arm, right on the brittle, burned skin.

He let out an awful yell, and stumbled back. I rushed far from the wall just as the door was re-opening, and Ira and Tenn walked back in. "Gaz!" my godfather exclaimed, while Tenn rushed them both in and slammed the door behind them again. "Gaz, what's going on? I heard yelling, and—"

"It's... Zim's awake and he's really not doing too great—" I began. Before I knew it, my arms were around Ira and I was holding onto him tightly. Someone... just, someone to protect me a little, someone else to share in this dreadful experience and this awful fear...

"GET _OUT!"_ I heard Zim shouting. His own voice was piercing through his memory's tone. I whipped my head in his direction to see how he was faring. The wound on his right arm was bleeding again, but I saw the decay spread a little down his shoulder, encroaching on the scars crossing his back. "Get out, get out, I don't want you, get _OUT!"_

"Us?" Ira wondered.

"No..." I began.

"...Shit, it's him..." Tenn whispered.

"Tenn, just what the _hell_ do you know?" I hollered.

"Look, I honestly didn't think this'd happen, but once the Talismans started showing up," Tenn said in her defense, "I got a little more worried."

"That sword is one of them, isn't it?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think so. I never knew too much... someone like Tak or Skutch would know more, they were weapons research, I was all about ships and robotics. But, yeah, safe bet."

"So what do we do?" I cried. "He said something about needing it and it being his other half or something—"

"We get him the hell out of here, that's what we do," said Tenn.

"Right," Ira said. "Not so much time to try out anything new on that arm... I think it just has to be confined. Gaz, you make sure, no matter what, he keeps a bandage on that arm. Check all the time, all right? It's not natural."

"Y-you can help, too..." I began.

Ira bit his lip. "I hope so."

Zim let out another harsh cry, then doubled over himself, holding his head in his hands. His shoulders trembled, and he looked horribly unsteady. Very slowly, he took breaths in and let them out. "Goddammit..." he said under his breath, his voice shaking. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"...Zim...?" I asked cautiously.

He winced, then forced himself to stand up a little straighter. When he struggled, I rushed forward and held him up, careful to be on his left side. As I held him up, Ira approached to wash off the wound on Zim's right arm, and then immediately began to wrap a fresh bandage around the irritated area. Zim cringed with discomfort as Ira went about his task, then drew in a long, deep breath, and looked at me with years worth of guilt. "I blacked out," he apologized. "Did, eh... did anything happen...?"

"A lot happened," I decided on saying.

"I was afraid of that."

"You _knew_ something like that might happen?" I didn't mean to snap, but that had been the single most terrifying experience of my life thus far. "Zim, what the hell? That was... I don't even... sorry, I don't mean to yell, but..."

"No, no, I just... hadn't wanted to talk about it yet," he said, shaking his head. "I should have. I need to."

"Yeah, you kinda do."

"Yeah, okay, we'll all talk," said Tenn, once Ira was finished, "but we gotta get out of this room."

"Why?" Zim wondered.

"Tell you once we're out."

I understood why. The mere mention of the sword's name might trigger something that the Commander, or at least his memories, awake and anxious in the PAK still buried somewhere in Zim's anatomy, might take advantage of.

However, once we were out in the grand hall, we saw someone else ready to take advantage of another Irken tool. Red stood, planted, several feet away from us. "Red has the Cabochon?" Zim whispered to me. I nodded. "That can't be good." I shook my head.

"Ira..." I began.

"Gaz," my godfather said, turning to face me, "whatever happens... don't give up. All right?"

"Ira, you don't have to go with him," I insisted.

"I'll try to talk him out of it. But just in case..." Ira untied the ribbon from his ponytail, and delicately placed it into my hand. Zim watched him with some scrutiny as he then placed a gentle kiss on my cheek and said, "I love you, Gaz. I'm so proud of you, and I'm grateful I was able to see you again."

"You're scaring me," I said, my voice reduced to a whimper.

"In the end," said my ever-optimistic godfather, "everything will turn out all right, somehow. Don't ever, ever give up."

He knew Red wasn't going to be persuaded. I had the pounding fear that these were to be my final seconds with my godfather for quite some time to come. I wasn't ready. Sure, we'd just finished up a battle, but this was thousands of times harder to deal with than strategizing against the enemy. I nodded to Tenn to take over for me, helping Zim, and stood on my own for a moment just so I could hug Ira again. "I love you, too," I muffled into his neck. "Thank you for being my family."

Ira patted me on the back a couple of times, then pulled away. Tenn stepped aside as Ira turned to face Red, and I stepped back in to keep Zim standing. He placed his hand on my shoulder cautiously, and I heard him ask, "What was that?"

My heart skipped. "He's like a father to me, Zim," I tried to assure him. "We... we can talk about it later."

"Hmm." We both knew that now was not the time to continue. Red was still commanding all of the attention in the room. As one would expect of the Tallest.

Red held up the gem, letting it dangle from his left hand, and fixed his eyes on Ira. "Honestly?" Ira shouted at him. "I never like saying this about anyone, but Red, you are pissing me off!"

My brother burst out from the meeting room at that point, and hollered, "Red, we weren't finished discussing any terms for—"

"FUCK TERMS," Red snapped, not taking his eyes off of Ira. "Here's all that anyone needs to know! Listen up! There's three Irken Talismans, and there's a Prophecy attached to them. One breaks, things set in motion. Two, there's change. Three and it's over." I wanted to ask what _things_ would be set in motion; what _things_ would herald change... but I didn't want to interrupt Red. "So like it or not, I'm gonna break this. I'm going back to my Empire, I'm taking back my position as Tallest, and I'm getting back my army! The Empire needs us."

"You," Ira spat back at him. He unpinned his hair and tossed off his lab coat, then strode toward Red. "The Empire needs _you."_

_"Us,_ Purple."

I choked; Ira froze. _"What_ did you just call me...?" he began, flabberghasted.

Moving faster than I'd have expected him to, Red marched forward and grabbed Ira by the collar. Leaning in, he said, "Your punishment isn't up yet! Until that time, you're going to serve me just as the Control Brains intended years ago!"

"The Brains are exactly the problem!" Ira shouted, releasing himself from Red's grip. "You know it, Dib knows it, everyone knows it!"

"Right," Red scoffed, "machines. Just a problem to you, right?"

"Red would you _shut up_ about that? I was talking to _Tak!"_ Ira insisted. "She's completely different from you! Isn't she?" Red didn't move. _"Isn't she?"_

"Red, you have to let Ira stay!" I finally interjected, hoping I could sway him. "We need him, badly, and besides—"

"I didn't think I had to say it again," Red growled at me. "He's mine."

Calmly, swiftly, Ira reached forward and grabbed onto Red's left wrist. My godfather glanced back at me for a moment, tried to smile, then glared back up at the Tallest. "There are two things you could do with that Cabochon," he said, keeping his tone level. "You could release me. It's the Talisman most closely connected to the Brains, Red. You want to make a good impression as a leader? Show the pity and mercy I know you can feel. Please."

"Only someone of higher rank than me can release you and you know it," Red shot back.

Ira shook his head. "And the Brains still currently overrule you. So that counts. Please do the right thing. Show me you can. And show everyone here that we can trust you."

Red didn't even fight himself. "I'm breaking this, we're going back together, and that's final!"

"WHY?" Ira demanded, letting go of Red's hand.

But Red just grabbed onto his reluctant partner again, this time by his shoulder, leaned in so that their eyes were level, and draped the hand holding the Cabochon over Ira's other shoulder. I almost saw a glint of that pity that Tak had tried to persuade him to kill. I saw a human side to him.

"Oh..." I heard Zim say, while Tenn looked confused.

"No, you are not just going to leave like that!" my brother attempted to argue. Lex stood and rushed to him, only to hold him back. Even she saw it.

I saw it painted all over Red's face. And so did Ira. "Why?" Ira asked of the Tallest again. "Why take me back with you now, Red? You could rule alone. Have the whole Empire to yourself. Why do you need me?"

Red closed his eyes. "Because I don't know any other way," he said. His tone almost made me feel sorry for him.

And then he clenched his hand so tightly around the Cabochon that it broke.

Ira didn't cry out. And I knew it was out of anger that he kept silent. A shaft of pale green light shot up around them and slowly changed to blue. I just barely made out the long silhouettes of two Irken Tallest before the light died down and the two were gone. "IRA!" I screamed after him. But neither were anywhere in the building.

"God! What the hell was that about?" Dib shouted at nothing. "We hadn't set up _anything!_ No communication rules, no settlements, nothing! There is no way Red is breaking any of our old terms now."

Just then, I heard GIR start screaming, and in a flash, the robot bolted past all of us and into the control room in which we'd received a message from Tak a few months prior. "Come on," Dib beckoned anyone who wanted to follow.

"God, this day just can't get any more commanding, can it?" Lex commented.

"I'm sorry," Dib said to her quietly, holding her close to him as they walked. "We can talk soon, hon, I promise."

"It's just so much to absorb, it's bordering on ridiculous," she pointed out.

"No kidding..."

I glanced up at Zim. "How are you, walking?" I wondered.

"A little shaky, but I think I can do all right," he said. The two of us were the last to move in to the control room, my father aside. Dad was lagging back, taking in everything that was going on... everything he had missed. We'd all be playing catch-up for a while, and now with Victor and Ira—well, I don't want to say _gone_ but _unavailable..._ it would probably be good to have him around. "Gaz, really, did I do anything... you know... really horrible to you back there?"

"I don't really want to talk about it yet," I admitted. "We will, just... later."

"Can I at least apologize?"

"If you want."

"I really am sorry."

"Mmhmm..."

Once the two of us were in the control room with the others, I let down my hair, tied it back up again in a high ponytail, then tied Ira's ribbon around the elastic. I had a feeling I'd wear that every day now. I could vaguely remember wearing bows as a little kid. It was still fuzzy, but I knew that they were gifts from Ira. I had stopped wearing them not long after he'd disappeared... because I couldn't tie them on my own, and Dad eventually stopped talking about Mom and his friends. And just let them be erased. Hopefully he'd start making up for that soon.

GIR's scream had been in response to a call signal, and as soon as Dib answered, Tallest Red's Irken image appeared on the screen. Now, I'd never really seen an Irken Tallest before—if I had, I hadn't been paying attention—so this was kind of a wakeup call to me. He was well-armored, long and thin, and seemed very, very much at home looking as he was supposed to once more. I caught no glimpse of Ira... or, Purple as he had to be called in the Empire. All I knew was that I was incredibly angry at Red for not being even slightly open to the idea of letting Ira stay with us.

Neither was Dib. "What's the big idea?" my brother demanded of the Tallest. "You can't just leave like that!"

"Look, I'm the Tallest again," Red argued, "and I'm going to have a little more say in my actions now. I'm still allied with you, and we'll talk. Tenn, I'm taking that ship you found."

"Cuz you totally asked permission!" Tenn shouted at the screen. "Oh, that is just fine! Not that I was going to use it or anything!"

"We're going after Tak, and that's all there is to it," Red barrelled on as if Tenn had said nothing. "I'll keep you updated on our progress, I just had to make the move now or nothing was going to happen."

"You had no right to take Ira without his consent," Dib snapped. "That's a human life you're messing with."

"He's still obligated to Empire duties, end of discussion!"

"No, _not_ end of discussion!" Dib argued. "That counts as abduction and as leader of the Swollen Eyeball Corporation, I am not going to stand for that! You had better have a damn good plan to redeem yourself for this, Red."

_"Tallest_ Red. It's enough I'm keeping you updated and allied. Just think about that."

"You had better find Tak," Dib warned.

"We will. But on my terms."

With that, the transmission was over. Dib punched at the controls and hollered, "There is absolutely no getting through to that guy!"

"Come on," Lex coaxed him, pulling him away from the computer. "I think what we all need to do right now is breathe."

She was right. Too much had happened. The second Invasion plot was over, but it felt like another loss. Red was back in position as Tallest... and unfortunately, so was Ira. We had no idea where Tak was, who still followed her, or what she had planned next.

The next few minutes found us all—myself, Zim, Dib, Lex, Tenn and my father—in the common room. Silent. Waiting. Too afraid to be the one to begin speaking.

Because every single one of us felt lost.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Notes:**

Whew… Gaz finally gets a long chapter but… sorry if you guys are lost at all with this one… again, a lot will start making more sense in upcoming chapters! ^^; I kinda feel bad that this happened to be the chapter before Valentine's Day. D: Because it's all about loss… (And, man, there is just no talking to Red, is there?)

Zim's PAK is a little more sentient now… I actually really love this trait. I love writing it/him. I have this thing about villains/antiheroes/duality, etc. etc. … heh… We'll see some reactions to exactly what it/he is in the coming chapters…

I just realized that this would actually kind of be the perfect place to end a part… but Part 3 really does need to be as long as it is, so it shall continue on, without being split~! (I contemplated that, but I didn't want to add an extra part, especially since we're through most of it…)

However, I do have to take a slight break right now, due to some huge time commitments at work (I'm working on three shows at my theatre job, so this is totally in the interest of staying rested and not rushing…). But it'll be good to get a bit of rest in, and I'll see you again on **Saturday, February 25****th****! **:3 (I just want to play it safe; I really don't want to rush this next part… sorry to have to leave you hanging here for a bit, ack! But I'll hope to return with at least one continuous chapter as well as a flashback I've been saving as buffer for a while…!)

Much love to all who read~~! :3

~Jizena

(Also a huge awesome thank-you shoutout to RavenFollower13 for her MiMi art~~ :3)

– – –


	26. Bonus Histories 2: And Another Ended

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

Oh gosh I feel like I haven't logged in here in forever, ack! ^^ Hope you all had a good couple of weeks~! This chapter is something of an interlude, between the first and second halves of Part 3...

I'm happy to finally bring in another _Bonus Histories_ scene, one I've been wanting to post for a whiiiiiiiiile~ We heard some of Membrane's past… here's a little more, in his own words. I like the way this kind of mirrors the most recent chapters, so with this background in mind, the chapters to come will flow a little more easily…

Last time we saw Miyuki and Charles get together... now it's coming apart.

This bonus chapter is set in 1995, when Gaz was three and Dib was four…

~Jizena~

– – –

_Charles' Records_

There is hardly a sadder feeling in the world than being able to count down the days to the very moment you lose everything you have ever been.

I had created quite a life for myself. Not a glorious one, but it was comfortable, and I was able to work in my own field, along with my darling Miyuki, a scientist leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else I had ever known. Her origins did not dissuade me from marrying her; her warnings of an ancient Prophecy were ignorable when our children arrived. For several years, we were happy. We had been happy. The Organization, though still young, was spreading; God bless Victor Haynsworth for giving it life in the UK as well.

My Oxford net had been cast well—Victor, along with Ira Murasaki, Miyuki, and myself, were perfectly matched, even if Ira still laughed at many of our paranormal efforts. He laughed right up until the day he disappeared.

By that time, my professional, and now legal, name had been spread out across the North American continent and abroad, and offers were already coming in, asking and in some cases demanding that I sell my ideas to any number of corporations. No, I constantly argued, I was hoping to build a corporation myself; one with much higher morals than any others that came to me pleading. Miyuki was proud of me for holding back.

But sometimes, Miyuki was all that kept me sane.

And then, in a flash, she was gone as well.

One moment, Ira's poor fiancée, Lisa, had been calling us in a panic, wondering where on Earth Ira could be (though little could any of us but Miyuki know that he was certainly not on Earth at all), and the next, I was calling Victor overseas, my hands trembling so awfully from the shock of losing my wife that I had to conduct the call on speakerphone.

And then—oh! then—to make things ever more worse, the corporations began to hound me again. I could not call Victor for support very often, as he was settling through his own legal divorce, and found myself stammering in gibberish when trying to come up with something plausible to tell my kids. They wondered daily where their mother had gone.

I had absolutely no answer.

The net had broken apart, and we were scattered. I had the Organization, but I felt so detached from it without my few close friends. Without her.

She had left without a word. Without a note.

When I had proposed to her, the very same night she had told me of her Irken past, she had tried to run, flustered, embarrassed. I'd been able to chase after her, then, and she vowed to never run again. She had promised. So how had I come to be alone, with no answers for our children, with no certainty of my own future? With hardly a single reminder that she had ever even been there?

On came the media. The reporters, the corporate executive officers, the labs, the universities… crowding outside my house with contracts and offers, each one topping the next for benefits and salary. I couldn't listen, I couldn't bear it. One afternoon, I found myself shooing away uncountable masses, while Dib and Gaz hid inside the house, away from the windows, afraid of the awful din outside.

"I am not going to sell!" I shouted out onto the lawn. "Leave my property _now!"_

Miyuki would have been able to talk them away. I couldn't even think straight anymore.

I retracted into the house, slamming the door as hard as I could to prove my point. No sooner had I locked the door and punched the wall control that shrouded and latched all the windows than I heard the telephone ring. Outraged, I stormed over to the phone plugged into the wall in the living room, picked up the reciever, and demanded, "What do you want?"

"Professor Membrane!" It was a woman's voice. A false one, a business voice, a voice that did not care, a voice as a product... a product of everything I'd hated in the past. "We've caught you at home. Now, if you wouldn't mind just—"

"Of course I mind!" I hollered. "I'm a human being, you know! Get that through your head and never call me again!"

As soon as I'd hung up, the phone rang again. My head spun with the noise; I felt like I was going mad. "Leave me alone!" I demanded when I picked up this time.

"Sir, just consider—" A man's voice this time, though just as fake as the woman before him. Soulless reporters, no better than vampires.

"Consider _this,_ asshole," I snapped back at him before he could finish. "My wife just left me, I have two children to take care of, and my inventions are not for your shameless promotion! Do you hear me?"

There was silence for a moment, and then the man tried, "But consider, sir, how, if you sold, you would be able to provide for your children. Assuming—"

"Don't you dare bring my kids into this, you bastard!" I warned. "To you, they're no better than my fucking inventions, are they? You don't care, your kind never has!"

"But think of the respect that comes with—"

"Respect?" I practically screamed. _"RESPECT?_ You _dare_ talk to me about _respect?_ Respect my privacy, you dumb shit! That goes for all of you!"

"But isn't it everyone's dream to be known? Think of it: the whole world would know your face."

"Shut up!" I shouted. "Shut up and leave me alone!"

The last straw drawn, I hung up and ripped the phone away from the wall, causing the cord to snap with the force I'd exerted. Still at wits' end, I threw the phone across the room, and it smashed against the far wall. Involuntarily, I sank to my knees, punching the wall with my right hand just as hard as I could. Then, I rested my head against the wall and looked down blankly at my left hand, and the golden wedding ring that remained in Miyuki's absence. Her name was engraved in that ring, and that was all I had left of her.

Collapsing under the weight of pain and pressure, I just sat bent over my knees for a while, meditating on what possibly could have happened over the past several months. Ira was gone, taken by the Irkens undoubtedly, and most likely being tortured... or already dead. I had no way of knowing. Nor did I know if Miyuki had followed him, whether she had found or even rescued him, or if she even had that on her mind. All she had told me was that she needed to leave, but she had not told me how long she was going to be gone, or if she'd ever return at all. She'd just left me with a ring, our children, and a million questions I was afraid would never be answered. "You didn't even say goodbye..." I muttered, bringing my hands up to my face to stop any tears or anything that may come.

I then bit down on one hand when that last phrase spoken to me came back into my mind: _"The world would know your face."_ That, and chorus upon chorus of reporters who did not know me constantly repeating my title, over and over and over, day in and day out to no end. _"Professor Membrane..."_

"I have a name!" I shouted, bringing my hands up now to grab at my hair. "My name is Charles, I—"

And then, Miyuki's voice through the din in my head, saying my name...

Only to be drowned out again by the masses.

They wanted to take her away from me. They wanted to separate me from her for good. They wanted my every last memory gone, my will sucked dry, my mind, my inventions, turned over to them. They wanted me to be done with who I was and become what they wanted me to be, and lately, I was becoming weak enough to almost want to entertain them.

For a second, I wished that I had all the answers. Isn't that what a father is supposed to have, anyway? I didn't even know how to explain all these situations to my children, let alone figure them out for myself. With my only friend living an ocean away, I had no one close to turn to. I wished for a second that I could simply call my own father and ask for advice, but I couldn't. Actually, even if I wanted to, I couldn't call anyone at the moment, as I'd destroyed the phone line.

I was still spiraling downward when I felt a tugging on my right sleeve. Sitting back, setting my hands down in front of me again, I saw that Gaz was standing there, her small fist still clutching my sleeve in a sort of plea, Ira's last ribbon held tightly in her other hand. Dib stood not far behind her, nervously rolling a sheet of paper around in his hands, wringing it like a towel.

"Dad, are you okay?" Gaz asked me.

When I tried to smile, it almost felt like I had failed. "I wish I could say 'yes,' honey, I really do," I answered, rubbing her back a little in case she was scared.

"This came under the door for you," said Dib, handing me the sheet of paper.

I unrolled it to find that it was a note attached to a contract, which I immediately frowned upon and ripped into quarters, tossing it aside. I didn't know how long I could cope, though; how long I could just ignore all the offers and demands that came at me. Realizing this, I bent and hugged both of my children.

"What's wrong?" Dib wondered.

"Listen..." I began slowly, forming my thoughts into words Dib and Gaz could understand, "there are a lot of bad people in the world... people who don't understand the good things that people like me and Lex's dad do. But sometimes they're much stronger than people like us, and can make us do bad things, too. I just want you kids to know that no matter what, even if those people make me do things for them, I'm still your father. And I love you two, and I always will. Always try to remember that, okay?"

"Does Mom love us, too?" asked Gaz... and I could hear her crying.

"Of course she does. And..." I almost pained myself saying things I did not know to be true or not, "she'll come back someday and tell you that herself."

"Dr. Murasaki, too?"

"Y-yeah," I answered, then drew back and forced out a smile. "But who needs those two today, right? Let's have fun, just the three of us. What do you say?"

Dib nodded vigorously, and Gaz wiped away her tears, then held the ribbon up to me. Smiling in hopes that she would as well, I gently took the ribbon and tied up her hair.

Little did I know that I was performing that action for the last time in my daughter's childhood.

We stayed in that day, and I put on an old record of mine to drown out any noise that could come from outside the house, not knowing as well that music would not be heard coming from my house again for another several years. At some points during the day, my mind drifted back to the days when I had the luxury of playing my guitar day in and day out. I hadn't touched it since the night Ira disappeared.

Keeping in light spirits, I entertained my children to the best of my ability, trying as hard as I could to put everything else out of my mind, trying to make that one day last as long as I possibly could, knowing subconsciously that I would soon have to give in and sell, if I wanted my children to have a comfortable life. We made lunch together, and amused ourselves with a boardgame for a while, then lazily wound our way through the day until dinner, during which we watched an old movie of Gaz's choosing.

Though the day lasted a good, long time, Dib and Gaz eventually got tired, as children do, and so I helped them both get ready for bed. Gaz insisted again that night on sleeping in her brother's room, and he didn't object. Once they'd both settled in, I read my children to sleep for the last time, then gave them each a kiss on the forehead, hoping to chase any nightmares away. I left the door to Dib's room open, then went back downstairs, turning off lights as I went.

As I was taking out Gaz's tape from the VCR and putting it away, I found, in among the few other movies we owned, videos that had been taken back in the '80s, before any of the awful confusion began. I pulled one out, labeled 'Spring 1988.' I stared blankly at it for a moment, then sighed and took it out of its sleeve and put it in the VCR. Putting the TV on a low setting, I stepped back toward the sofa and bent over my knees, watching my old life play before me.

It was the video we'd taken while spending time with Victor in Kensington Gardens just before Lex was born. Amelia—Victor's now-ex wife—had been with her parents, and the four of us were having one last day together before Victor stepped into his role as a father. Even Amelia, with whom Miyuki, Ira and I rarely associated, was gone now.

The video was almost too hard to watch. There was Ira, smiling as always, not knowing what was going to become of him a few years down the road. And Victor, looking nervous, though I knew now he was going to be a much better father than I could continue to be. And there I was, younger, more lively, and with Miyuki right there by my side. We'd all taken turns with the camera, and then at one point it was passed to me.

The angle turned to Miyuki, and I said:

"Say you love me."

"Turn that thing off, and I'll say it a thousand times!"

"A thousand and one. Come on."

Miyuki laced her hands behind her back and smiled at the camera. "I love you, Charles."

After that, the short video ended, and the television screen went to snow. I sighed and slumped back into the sofa, turning off the TV, then lay down on my back completely, one leg bent, the other extended. I removed my glasses, setting them down on the coffee table, and lay alone in the dark. The corners of my mouth twitched a little on their own, but I refused to let the tears come. Our world was broken. My time was over. I had to do what was best for my children now.

– – –

"I'm going to sell."

I had repaired the phone for one reason only. That confession was it.

"What? Charles, think about what you are saying! Just give the Organization some time; you'll have the money eventually."

"No," I said harshly. "This is what needs to be done."

Victor was silent for a minute, then sighed. "You've gone mad, Charles, I swear it," he said disdainfully, and I heard him hit his hand against either a table or a wall. "Ever since April, you've been on and off. You aren't yourself. You need help before you do anything; I'm worried about you. Why give up on the Organization?"

"Because if I do, I can keep my kids safe," I replied, though inside I was praying that I was doing the right thing. Having doubts now would do me no good though. "It's best for them never to get involved. I've lost a friend and my wife to the Irkens, Victor, I'm not going to lose my children, too!"

"Charles, if I were you, I wouldn't worry about the Irkens but about yourself!" Victor returned, almost shouting. "From what I hear of the companies that want you to sell, you'd be doing yourself _and_ your children a disservice by leaving!"

"I've made up my mind, Victor, the Organization belongs to you and Richard! I might keep in touch, but I'm not losing my kids to those studies!" I curled my free hand into a fist and pounded it against the kitchen counter. "Look at where our own studies have brought us!" I continued, more angry at myself than anything. "Our wives have left, our children are confused; Victor, the best thing I can do is just forget!"

"No!" he growled firmly. "You're running from what you believe in, and I won't allow it. What you believe is your lifestyle, and it always has been. You can't deny who you really are."

"Who I really am is confused!" I shouted. "I'm confused, and this is the only way! I'll send you some papers with more details once Charlotte works some things out. I'm selling and that's final. I know you're still raising Lex to your ways, but Dib and Gaz, I swear it, will never find out about what they are! They'll have a normal, healthy life, and I'll have a normal, everyday job. And if Miyuki didn't want it that way then she can come back and tell me herself, but this is what I've chosen to do for now."

Victor was again silent. "Are you quite finished?" he wondered, and I heard his voice waver a little. He didn't believe me, or at least, he didn't want to. Who could blame him? I was pushing myself away from my last true friend.

"Yes," I replied. After a pause, I added, "And I'm sorry."

"If you're sorry, then—"

"I have to go, Victor. Thank you for listening."

"Charles Membrane, if you hang up that telephone, I swear to God—"

I not only hung up, but disconnected the line again.

The Irkens had taken Ira, I was sure of it. They had taken him as a warning to Miyuki, for having stepped out of bounds of the Empire, while still in posession of that Mirror she so rarely let me see. As a result, she had caved to the very threat they had issued, and had left like snow after winter. Just as gracefully as she had come. If that Zim person she'd gone on about was behind any of it, I didn't know, but I'd keep my ears open for mention of him.

But my children could not be told any of that. Nothing about Irkens, nothing about aliens at all. Curiosity might take them from me. I couldn't have that. Not now. Not that the last strand of my sanity was in jeaopardy with Miyuki gone.

From there, I walked briskly up the stairs and down the hall to my son's room, where both my children lay sleeping still. They hadn't heard my argument, they hadn't heard my conviction. While they were still young enough not to know of any other life, I was going to make sure their futures were as free from trouble as possible. I couldn't lose them. Even if I had to give up some of my own free will, and possibly some of my own sanity, in the process, no one was ever, ever going to take my children away from me.

"I'm doing this for you," I said, speaking my resolution once again so I knew I'd stay committed. "I'm doing this so at least the two of you can have the lives you deserve. You'll have a normal, healthy future, I promise."

Taking a couple steps further into the room, I went on speaking. "I won't let them find you," I vowed, my fingers slowly curling in on their own as I stood there, motionless. "I swear to God, I'll never let them find you."

I was trembling at that point. My decision scared me, but my will didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered but what would come to pass for Dib and Gaz. Once again taking a seat at the bedside, I watched my children sleep for a moment, as Miyuki used to do, and then I lost it. Holding my head in my hands, I let the tears come. Victor was right and I knew it, but I was so confused, now, I had to go through with what I'd earlier said. I didn't want to, but I was going to, because so much depended on just one sacrifice, and that sacrifice had to be mine.

"They're not going to take you," I repeated, my voice now an unplanned whisper. I choked grudgingly on my tears. Grown men shouldn't cry. "No one's going to take you away from me. I'm going to protect you with everything I have left, no matter how hard it'll get. I can't lose you two."

I had painfully disturbing dreams last night. One was an alternate past, during which I had never met Miyuki. Her name even left my mind, and my entire existence was unaware. That one didn't last long; I woke up before it could. I wouldn't let it keep going. Many other dreams filtered in as I lay in that empty bed, berating me for my decision, constantly taunting me for selling out and giving up.

At the end came the worst dream of all. In the dream, I awoke without knowing what day it was, consciously a slave to routine. The dream carried on as though it were the immediate next day, however. The only difference was, when the me I had dreamed up walked down the hall to my children's rooms, they were empty, and then I was suddenly aware that they'd not been taken as Ira had, they'd simply grown up and moved on, and I hadn't even noticed them leave.

When I woke from that awful vision it was still dark outside, and I ended up lying awake until the sun rose, praying every second that my conviction would never lead to that ever happening.

– – –

As soon as the day had reached a reasonable hour of morning (roughly seven a.m.), I showered and began to dress, wondering what I could possibly wear. Well, Charles? What _is_ the most appropriate choice of clothing to wear on the day one turns over his very soul? I certainly wasn't going to be myself around those bastards, that was for sure. Sorting through my closet, which I knew would never be as neatly organized as Miyuki had always arranged it again, I just pulled out a collared white shirt and wore my least casual black pants with it. I'd never felt comfortable dressing up for anything, which was one reason why I very rarely accompanied Miyuki on her trips to the theatre. Ira was more suited for those things.

Thinking about the two of them, my heart sank again. They were gone; gone from my life for a time I couldn't think to estimate. The darker side of my consciousness suggested that perhaps the two had planned to leave... after all, Ira had felt something for Miyuki long ago. I shook the thought away. That was stupid and impossible. Ira was so in love with Lisa it must have been killing him to be away from her. The two could barely be parted even when he went to work. He'd been away from his job and the woman who would now be his wife (had things gone differently) for months now. He wasn't coming back, not any time soon. And neither was Miyuki. My Miyuki. The woman I'd given half my life to; the woman to whom I had convinced the existence of the human soul. She had left me... left me to make the worst decision of my life.

I walked down the hall to check in on my children, who were still asleep at that hour, then sighed and walked downstairs, to plug in the phone in the interest of calling the only person I knew for sure would be awake and working at seven-thirty: Charlotte Baudelaire. She and Richard Dyer (my old chemistry teacher and now colleague, whom Dib at age two had nicknamed 'Darkbootie,' which had stuck like glue) were doing more for the Organization now than I could bring myself to, and I felt terrible wanting to ask her for a favor on the day I was to announce my resignation as leader of the Organization I had dreamed for years to create. That Organization was my pride, so it was more than fitting that I was casting it off in order to sell out and do what was right for my children.

Of course, Charlotte couldn't be relied on to watch after the kids anymore, since she'd fill their heads with ideas from the SEO, and I couldn't have that. Just for today, though, she was the only one I could think of to call, though I swore that I wouldn't inform her of my final decision until she returned that evening. I asked, of course, when I called, that she come to the house, and when I let her in, she had to push through a crowd.

"Charles, what the hell is going on out there?" she asked me.

"Nothing," I muttered. "Reporters hungry for more stories. Don't tell them a thing you know about Miyuki, you understand?"

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Good. The Organization is underground, and it needs to stay that way." My voice sounded so cold that day. I already didn't recognize myself. "I need to ask you to watch the kids today, Charlotte," I requested, trying to soften my tone, leading her upstairs. "I've got some work I need to do alone, and I don't want those assholes in the yard scaring these two."

Charlotte sighed. She was always very good at going along with everything, and being one of the more understanding members of the Organization. "I hope you're thinking about moving, and maybe changing your name back to Mansfield, or maybe to something else," she said, more quietly now that she knew Dib and Gaz were still asleep.

"No amount of name changing will stop anyone from hounding me," I replied in a slight whisper.

"Charles..." She was getting wary. "You're not going to do anything stupid today, are you?"

I shrugged a little as a reply, then walked into Dib's room, feeling, all of a sudden, more like an outsider in my children's lives than their father. When I drew back the curtains, my son was the first to stir as the sunlight hit the bed.

"Good morning," I managed to say, setting a hand on his arm.

"Dad?" he said sleepily, rubbing his eyes with one fist to wake himself up. "Are we going somewhere?"

"Sort of," I replied, gently stroking Gaz's back to wake her up as well. "You and your sister get to spend the day with Charlotte. You like it when she babysits, don't you?"

"Where're we going?" Dib wanted to know, yawning. "How come you can't come?"

"I have some work to do today, son, I'm sorry," I told him. That was the first instance that I can recall... the first time I just couldn't bring myself to say my son's name. Miyuki had chosen that name, and I'd loved it, it was perfect for him. He was his mother's child, with all his curiosity, but so many of his traits were from me. He needed to have a better shot at life than I had. He needed a secure future, and a normal childhood that he could carve out himself. He didn't need me missing his mother every time I said his name. "Charlotte will bring you back for dinner."

"But I'm tired!" he protested, pulling up his bedsheets as Gaz clung to her brother's mattress. She was still sleeping; I could tell from the pattern of her breath. "Charlotte can babysit us here."

"Not today, son; you've got to get up for me, all right?"

"No..." he groaned, pressing his face into his pillow.

I smiled sadly. Miyuki always knew what to do in order to wake those two up, either with words or an old Finnish song, or the mention of breakfast. I gave up and let the two sleep a little longer while I packed clothing for the two of them for the day into a small bag, which I gave to Charlotte, who didn't look entirely pleased with me, but still agreed to watch the kids once I'd finally managed to shake them slightly awake.

Since the two were still quite tired (and wearing their nightclothes), Charlotte and I had to carry the two outside, by way of the garage. I refused to go outside, for good reason, which she understood, so she offered to bring the kids one by one to her car. While I was still holding Gaz, Charlotte let me say a little goodbye to my son, to whom I repeated a whispered apology before she brought him outside. When she returned for Gaz, I almost didn't let go. Gaz, whom I had named, had everything in her like her mother, aside from her eyes. It was like parting with Miyuki all over again.

Gaz stirred in my arms, then buried her face in my shoulder and held onto my shirt tightly when she saw that she was about to leave for the day. "Gaz, you've got to go with Charlotte and your brother today, okay?" I said to her as kindly as I could.

"No!" she protested. "I wanna play with you, Dad! Dib, too! We wanna stay home and play with you again!"

"You'll be home for dinner, honey; I promise, I'll play with you then."

"No you won't! You're making us go away like Mom and Dr. Murasaki went away!"

"No, honey, no I'm not," I assured her. She wasn't the one leaving. I was. "I love you, Gaz, you and your brother, and you know that. I just need to do some things today, so you can play with Charlotte."

"I want Dr. Murasaki!" Gaz insisted.

My heart sank even further. "I know. Go back to sleep, sweetheart, it's early yet," I told her, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "I'll see you tonight, okay?"

"I love you, Dad."

Those words completely broke my heart. "I love you, too, Gaz," I told her. Giving her to Charlotte, I wiped away some of my daughter's tears, then apologized again. That was the last time I could remember seeing my daughter cry. After that, she hardened. Charlotte glanced back at me disdainfully, then left with Gaz, not saying another word.

Alone now, I sighed, then retreated back into the house. I checked the answering machine, which I'd set to only accept messages from Victor, Lisa, or the Organization, and there were three messages from Victor, from different intervals of the night, pleading me to reconsider and weigh my options. For some reason, that just made me angrier, and made my decision clearer. That was probably around the time that I realized without Miyuki, I was absolutely hopeless. She'd told me about her friend, Zim, who had been more or less driven to insanity because of something to do with her, and I wasn't far behind him. She had that effect, I supposed.

I bypassed making my morning coffee and trudged upstairs, walking right into the bathroom. My hair, the way I'd decided to style it, was bothering me now that it was longer, but that seemed fine. Dib wore his hair similarly now, so that, if nothing else, made me keep from hacking my hair to a shorter length that morning. I had to do something about my appearance, though. For a few minutes, I just glared at my reflection, then sighed and shaved, coming up with nothing. I didn't have any contacts, so I couldn't go without my glasses, nor did I have a different pair I could hide behind.

Washing my face and putting my glasses back on, it hit me. I stared at my own reflection a while longer, and then the words from the previous evening came back to me: _"The world would know your face."_

Leaning in, I pounded one fist against the mirror, above my head, then narrowed my eyes and said in reply, "No, it won't."

Name change notwithstanding, I was still, to Miyuki, to Victor, to everyone, even my children who had never known my mother, Charles Trystan Mansfield. I always would be, and nothing could change that. The public didn't deserve to know him. Anita could forget, Rico could forget, Charlotte, Richard, Brakem, and everyone at the Organization could eventually erase my true persona from memory. The public wanted Professor Membrane, not Charles Mansfield. His face, therefore, I decided, could not possibly be mine.

Glancing at myself one last time, I pushed away from the mirror and rushed downstairs to the basement, taking off my collared shirt and tossing it aside, instead going to my laboratory closet and retrieving my long white lab coat, which I pulled on over my undershirt and pants. Reaching into the closet again, I pulled out the invention that had gotten me into MIT: the boots I'd made that Miyuki had marveled over the night I saved her from an awful spill on the ice. The night we'd met. To everyone else, they just looked normal, and so, to keep her near me, I wore those, stuffing my pant legs in, glad that my shoe size hadn't changed even after tacking a couple more inches onto my height after I was seventeen.

My glasses were the last things to go. I tucked them into the breast pocket of my lab coat after seeking out the invention that had somehow led to Ira's naming my Organization. The goggles had just been repaired, too, which was useful for me. Those things could alter my vision to see through anything, now. Even lies, perhaps, now that I was living one.

I fixed the goggles into place, clipping the toggle switch to the sleeve of my lab coat, pushing the setting to my usual corrective lenses' capabilities. The only difference with the goggles was that nobody could see my eyes. No one could see the hurt, the worry, the pain, the anger, the regret that would be transfixed in my eyes forever. Even knowing of my stupidity, I clenched my hands into fists and began walking away, ready to leave Charles Mansfield locked in a place and time I could hopefully revisit someday. One last thing had to be done, though, I realized after glancing down at my hands.

I just couldn't take that wedding ring off. I couldn't. So, thinking quickly, I obscured it by the black, electrically charged gloves I'd created after Miyuki had explained her Irken powers to me. Thinking about that made my resolution seem, for a moment, more logical. I wouldn't lose my kids to an Empire like that. I was doing this for them. They were mine, not theirs, no matter that they had Miyuki's genes. Dib and Gaz were mine, they were human, and they always would be. I'd work to make sure of that.

The gloves in place, I walked slowly up the stairs, fastening my lab coat. For the first time, I was relieved that it had such a high neck; it covered everything, my neck, my chin, my nose and mouth. I disappeared behind that facade that day, and, as much as I knew it would help my children in the long run, I did fear that there was no going back.

I opened the door to an enormous crowd, and nobody commented on my changed appearance, showing that they truly did not care. They just wanted my inventions, and, unfortunately, I needed their money. I answered their questions, saying things I knew they would want me to say, and I signed a few contracts, my signature changed to just read the name that would eventually become a media icon.

But my heart wasn't in it. It never would be. My heart was where I'd left it in late July, on the day Miyuki had walked out of my life. The real me would remain there, waiting, for years upon years, wondering when the icon I had become would return and cast everything aside. I had become everything I'd never wanted to be... and, despite my attempts to bring about a normal life for my children, that hope was never fulfilled. I became less of a father and less of a guardian than I had ever inteded to. Work pulled me away from the only thing that really mattered in my life anymore, and I was pulled to and fro like driftwood in a tide. I was nobody that I knew. Charles Mansfield was gone, just like Ira, just like Miyuki. My wife, my beautiful, amazing Miyuki, had driven me to insanity in her absence after all.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Notes:**

Woooo… nice cheerful way to segway into Part 3B, huh? ^^; I've been doing some thinking the past couple weeks, and was almost tempted to continue Part 3 in a separate file, but since in the end it'll all fit best together under the title of _Memories,_ I've decided that the best thing to do is to call everything before this Part 3A, and everything after, Part 3B. I wrote this 'birth of Membrane' sequence some time ago and have just been itching to post it, haha... he's such an interesting guy to write.

Due to the way I want the updates to flow after this, this is the only chapter I can post this week… (sorry! ^^; Work being super super busy contributed to that, too, aagaugh…) But next week we'll be checking back in pretty much where we left off. Gonna be getting really heavy on Zim's past, soon, not to mention a great deal more family things relating to the Membrane clan…

Great to be back~! Woo! Thank you guys so much for your comments from last time, sorry I didn't get around to answering yet, but I shall soon~! :3 Hopefully now that the two shows are done, even though I'm starting up another, I'll have much more time to be able to post more chapters!

I don't know if I'll be able to get anything posted for this (maybe at least a sketch, haha), but this coming Wednesday, February 29th, is Ira Murasaki's birthday~ XD He's only had two official ones since I started writing this (2004 and 2008, and I only really celebrated the second time since I don't think I came up with his birthday until 2005, haha), so I'll be getting out the lilly-jasmine tea for sure. (I totally do that, I celebrate character birthdays…) Too bad the situation in IZMS 'real time' isn't really the best for him right now, though… ^^;

Again, thank you all so, so much for reading! I'm very excited to get to this next segment of Part 3, some preeeeetty interesting things coming up~ See you all again next **Saturday, March 3****rd****!**

Much love,

~Jizena :3

– – –


	27. Rain and Snow 1: Mutual Understanding

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Zim's Records_

As much as I wanted to just cut myself off from having to talk to anyone and sleep for about a week, I couldn't. Not only because my future with the Corporation was probably on the line, but because I was shaking. I had experienced too much, in too short a length of time.

Luckily, everyone was too tired at the end of that evening to continue. We spoke briefly, but nobody wanted to. Dib offered his father Professor Haynsworth's room, but winced when he did. Professor Membrane politely declined the offer, as well as the offer of Red and Ira's room, and chose to sleep on the sofa in the common area. It was decided that we would all speak the following day, though we did share concerns for both Victor and Ira.

Nobody wanted to address any of that. Red was being selfish. Sure, Tak needed to be tracked down, but there had been no reason for Ira to be taken away as well. I was concerned about Skutch, too. He had just started to tell me a little about the way Tak had run things. I'd wanted to continue talking to him, but MiMi had hauled the Invader away. He'd helped me before; I wanted more information. He was the type who'd give it, as long as he got something out of it in return. Oh, well.

Dib and Lex retired to bed first. Dib decided that it was best for us all to rest, and to think, and to come back to discussion in the morning. Charlotte offered to stay up and take tabs on things for a little while, and Tenn left to help her, leaving just me and Gaz with her father, until the Professor admitted to wanting a shower and left us as well.

Gaz and I both stood, and when I took hold of her arm, she fell against me in a light hug. I wrapped my arms around her, and for a couple minutes, all we did was hold each other and breathe. There was nothing to say that wouldn't scare either one of us. Even just knowing that was terrifying. The world seemed to be ending; it very well could have been. The fact that Tak wasn't in power as Tallest anymore was almost worse than her holding the position. Because she was on the outskirts again, she had a following, and she was not about to let up.

"I'm sorry," was what I finally said to Gaz.

"Me, too," she mumbled into my shoulder.

"Why? You don't have anything to be sorry for."

"Sorry I don't like to talk, I guess," she said. Her voice was kind of harsh and raw, but she had been through a hell of a lot that day. "I miss Ira."

"I know," I sighed.

"What happened to you in the infirmary?" she asked. "You said you were the Elite Commander, and you tried to hurt me, and it was just really... uncomfortable..."

"I blacked out," I told her. "I'm sorry. I just... you saw my arm, right?" She nodded. "I told you I've forgotten a lot of my past, yeah?" She nodded again. "Well, my PAK's been forcing it on me, and sometimes it has a voice."

Gaz stood back. "Like, are you being _possessed,_ Zim? What the hell?"

"No, it's me, just... a side of me I have to get rid of."

"I'm worried about you," she admitted. "I can't lose you."

My heart skipped. "Thank you," I said, stunned and flattered. "That means a lot to me. I, eh... I can't lose you either, you know. Look, I've been trying to protect you from this awful PAK thing for a little while, but I guess the best thing I could've done was just let you know..."

"Yeah, I'd appreciate that," said Gaz firmly. "Be up front with me, Zim, I mean it."

"I'll try. But, I mean, didn't that scare you?"

"Freaked me the fuck out, and that takes a lot," she sighed. "But you're still here, so... if that Elite Commander can come and go like that, just... I don't know..."

"I'm giving you permission to do whatever you need to do if it happens again," I told her.

"Okay. You okay now, though?"

"I've been better."

"I figured."

"You?"

"Same. I'm gonna go to bed."

I wanted to kiss her goodnight, but thought it would have been too forward, and chose not to. I did walk her to her room, though, before returning to mine. I was glad I hadn't lost her or ruined our friendship; that much was comforting. The fact that the Commander had found his voice, though... that was not comforting at all.

The evening was plagued with nightmares from my past. Each passing hour, it seemed, brought to mind another bloody encounter that I did not remember. Underlying all of my awful visions was, for some reason, a pang of remorse for the damage I'd done to Skutch's hands. I didn't even know why, but somehow I felt just as bad as I would have if it had been _Gaz_ I'd attacked so ruthlessly with _Osdraken._

I awoke as soon as Gaz's name came rushing into my mind, and I stared blankly at my ceiling, almost wishing I was outside so that I could look up at the stars. After a few moments, though, I heard the steady beat of rain coming down onto the roof and against my window. It was a symphony of percussive downbeats, some heavy, some soft, some weak yet powerful enough to bring back an old, old image of the life I'd led before becoming Elite Commander. That life had been forgotten even before I'd erased my memories; this I somehow knew.

I didn't understand myself in those years, since I did not know what my Original ability was. I wanted to understand, sure, but I really didn't want to lose myself.

My eyes watered, and I wished I could let go, just like the rain. I shivered and tried to sit up. Nothing happened. My strength was shot; I'd used far too much energy during my fight with Skutch to create _Osdraken,_ and now it, even from a distance, was weighing me down. I heard a whisper in my mind. It was voiceless, it wasn't me, nor was it the PAK. The whisper seemed like nothing, but it made me believe things I wouldn't have, had I been at full strength.

It told me that I couldn't exist without that sword. I realized later that the whispers must have belonged to _Osdraken_ itself, that it was the cause of all my discomfort. Somehow, I needed _Osdraken._ Why, I did not yet know, but not long after the whispers had started, I was suddenly able to pick myself up.

GIR wandered into my room just as I was stepping off of my bed, coming in to sleep, it seemed. He looked scared when he saw me, then grinned instead and climbed up onto the bed, curling up at the foot of it. "Bed!" he insisted.

I glared down at him. Past his vacant blue stare, past the cracked, innocent smile—I was convinced: somewhere inside that tiny, usually-malfunctioning, only half-reliable (in terms of information) robot, was something I was not, at least currently, meant to see. I couldn't place a finger on why I had that thought, but something was telling me that there was a high probability that GIR was hiding something.

All right, the new facts: I had been Elite Commander, I was an Original... I'd had that sword, _Osdraken,_ when I led the Elite, and then when the Vortians had me condemned for 'killing' Miyuki, I had ordered Red and Tak to split the sword in half. And that had, somehow, sent Tak on her never-ending spiral of hating and trying to get back at me. I wondered if Tak knew, when she first came to Earth, if I, Zim, had been by name the person who'd caused the now-infamous Devastis blackout (a lot of the things I'd done in my past were infamous, actually...); if she'd already been stalking me, wanted to beat me out for the Invadership, and just so happened to have an excuse to hunt me. Either way, she had probably been trying to get back at me for various things for—well, years.

In Irken years, I was about twenty or thirty years shy of two hundred; that was a long time for someone to be chasing me down and holding grudges. All I did know was that Tak was older. I couldn't place an exact age on myself, but I knew I was missing the first sixty... and they were slowly rebuilding, no thanks to that dreadful PAK. And now _Osdraken._

Both of which, I was now convinced, I had to somehow destroy if I was ever going to live with a human soul. My body could only hold one or the other. Then again, there was the odd case of Miyuki. She seemed to have both... or maybe it was that one was always just a little stronger than the other, based on where she lived at any given time. Jeez, everything would be so much simpler to deal with if Miyuki would be open to discussing all she knew. I was sure Gaz and Dib felt the same way. Especially given that they were the heirs to her Empire.

That was kind of bothering me.

It bothered my PAK, too.

I felt that pang of discomfort on my arm and on my back, and I rolled my shoulders back, trying to push the increasingly stronger voice of my past self out before he could start. But now he had a voice, and so did that sword. Or, maybe not so much a voice as just a felt influence. Still. It was terrifying.

"You gonna sleep now?" GIR asked me, shocking me right out of my thoughts.

I studied the robot again, then leaned forward onto my knees, ready to do something I never would have caught myself doing before. There was a first time for everything. Like counsel my off-the-grid quirk of a Standard Information Retrieval unit.

"No," I said. GIR winced back. I clicked on the light beside my bed. His antenna drooped. "Look, I'm not going to yell at you," I prefaced. "I just want to know what you know."

"I know the Macarena," GIR announced, and started up an erratic, awful dance while he hummed some jarring notes.

"No, no, no," I stopped him quickly. I pressed my hands out in front of me to get him to stop, which, thank God, he did, then sighed and tried to figure out how to better word my questions so that even GIR couldn't misinterpret them. The only way to go about doing that was to be blunt, but at the same time not obvious. I had seen his eyes go red, and seen him oppose MiMi more than twice. Each time he did... he'd said something. Like it was his tell. MiMi jostled something in him... just as Tak was trying to jostle something in me (and was in a way succeeding, which just made me sick to think about).

Stiffly, combatting the shooting pain from both of my PAK-enflamed wounds, from the raw skin decay, and from just plain fighting without rest for so long against a good opponent like Skutch, I stood up off the bed, only to sit again, cross-legged, in front of GIR. "No dance?" he asked meekly.

"No, GIR, because I'm pretty sure that there's something very, very important that you aren't telling me," I said, making my voice as even, as steady as I possibly could. "Now, you listen to me, okay? And answer me. It's very, very important, GIR."

"Oh, okay." Not that it was going to be simple as that, but at least I had his attention.

"GIR, outside, you saw me fighting with a sword, right?" He nodded. "Have you ever seen it before?" He nodded again. My stomach churned and I felt like my entire body was jolted into one huge acid reflux. I held the discomfort in, though, and pressed on. "Okay. Where?"

"Uuuuhhhh..." GIR flopped his head back and gaped, eyes and mouth both wide, up at the ceiling as if he was waiting for the rain from outside to burst in through the ceiling and drip onto him. "I seen it..."

"Please, GIR, it's very important that you tell me."

"Oh, I seen it lotsa times," GIR finally answered, ticking his head back up so he could look at me. "There's this one time. Woo! And this other one. Aw, yeah." He accentuated these as triumphant answers, fist-bumping himself when he 'remembered.'

"GIR," I said firmly, shaking him as if that would do any good to get the rusty cogs of his brain swept clear of cobwebs and working like the well-oiled machine I was sure they could be.

Or... once were.

My head flashed with another memory vision from 'before.' No... no, all scenes I'd seen. On the battlefield, on the warship that predated the _Massive,_ on the Vortian research station. GIR had been there. He'd been there every time, eyes red and alert, if slightly altered in design. Or—no, no...

_In the vision, GIR's right and left arms functioned the way MiMi's right did now. Both were fitted with extendible, claw-like appendages—deadly as befit the war partner of the Irken Elite Commander. It was a dangerous design, but I had insisted upon having that model, and denying any other soldier the right to be paired with one similar. The second rush of SIR unit models was created, then, with a new mold, and less personality._

_ GIR was different. He had to be, in order to serve me. The one and only that had another name—_

"GIR..." I said as I slowly surfaced from the flash, to find myself face to face with that blue-eyed stare again. "I'm only going to ask you this one more time." My heart started pounding. "What does the G really stand for?" GIR opened his mouth. "You are not to tell me you don't know, do you understand?"

My voice came out in a slight growl, and I yelped, sat back, and grabbed at my hair. The PAK laughed inside my head. The laugh tickled my own throat, but I swallowed back any sound. _Don't do this,_ I pleaded. _Haven't you done enough for today?_

_ "I will not be finished until we crawl together to a higher plane,"_ said the PAK.

_What the hell is that supposed to mean?_

_ "You annoy me. Your human tendencies are useless, and they annoy me. I will accept your determination as passable."_

_ I wasn't looking for your approval._

_ "I wasn't looking for a host like this, but we cannot ask for everything, now, can we? We can only take it. Which is why I will take you. Where is my sword?"_

_ You're not getting it._ I tucked my knees up and withdrew further into myself.

_"STOP THAT!"_ the PAK snapped. _"STOP HIDING."_

I cried out, but involuntarily, I lay back, stretching my legs out over the floor. I refused to move my hands, even though my arms burned with a desire to move. A desire that was not mine. He was getting more control. "LET GO!" I hollered.

I pried my eyes open and drew in a deep gasp, then got myself sitting back up.

Only to find that GIR's eyes had gone red. I backed up out of shock, and felt like I would never know sleep again. The rain beat down harder. "What the hell?" I stammered. "Wh-what's going on? GIR? What are y—why're your—honestly, what's going on?"

"Still too soon," said GIR. His voice was level and obedient. Clipped; robotic. But at the same time, commanding. A unit created by Irken hands, sure, but a soldier nonetheless.

"For what?" I asked in a panic.

"For you to remember."

"Remember _what?"_ That was a new low. That was pleading. With _GIR._ Something really was wrong. I was trapped in a fucking nightmare. A waking nightmare.

His eyes flashed blue, to show me the alternative, and then back to red; they narrowed, narrowed specifically on me. His answer was, very simply, and yet so weighted:

"Me."

My breath just would not come, for what felt like ages. When my burning lungs could take no more, I gasped in a couple of deep gulps of air. GIR hadn't moved. "What are you?" I asked him. "If—i-if you can't have me remembering you, then there's no harm in you telling me a couple things that won't jostle memories, right? Or, I mean... all—all I want to know is, do you have anything else to do with... with... th-the Commander? In the way that _Osdraken_ does, I mean."

GIR only stared.

"Tell me what I want to know!" I snapped. I was about at the end of my rope. Nobody was telling me anything important. Things were only divulged once awful things started happening to me. It seemed that things had always been this way. Was every single person I knew in the Irken Empire—and then some—just trying to jar me out of my human goals? By provoking me like this?

Where the hell was Miyuki when I actually wanted to talk to her?

"That's better," said GIR. A chill went down my spine. "I don't respond to fear."

"Fear?" My voice came out in a whisper.

GIR's eyes flashed blue again, he cocked his head to look at me, shrugged, and then left the room humming as if nothing had happened. My door swung closed on its own, and I backed up against the wall, my hands shaking each time I pushed myself back. My breaths came heavy and broken. "What's going on?" I asked the air.

Oh, I knew. I knew damn well.

I was at war with my own internal chemistry. At war with my own past.

I had never truly known fear before now. Trust, Hate, Fear, and then Love. That was the deal. I had to figure out the first three before I could really know Love. I'd proven Trust and conquered Hate. I'd been wondering when Fear would surface. The fear of losing to my own dark past. The fear of losing myself. The fear of what was happening to me. And how long I could fight it.

_ "Now do you understand, human?"_ My eyes were watering again, with nothing I could do about it. I pressed my back firmly against the wall and shook my head. No strength to shake his voice out. None whatsoever. _"What? Can't respond? It's all for the best, then, isn't it?"_

"You're Fear," I whispered. My voice was broken.

_"If that is how you choose to define me."_

"I doubt I do have a choice," I answered, well aware that I was now answering aloud. That I was acknowledging his presence as something outside of myself. "It's what you are."

_"Saying that you are afraid of me, then?"_ That's what I was more or less admitting, yes. _"You have no place being afraid of anything. I have marked you with death. It's written all over your arm and will soak up your blood. Isn't death what all humans are afraid of?"_

"Yes."

_"Give me control, and it will go away."_

"No."

_"You're too stubborn." _The PAK retaliated by sending a surging, stinging pain through my veins, stemming from my back, then a rush to the heart, and a rush to my right arm. My chest started to burn with a scratch that had appeared on my skin there, at some point during my fight with Skutch. _"Yes. I am Fear. Fear that can destroy Trust. That can crush Hate."_

"Get away from me. I'll beat you."

_"Fear that can halt that ridiculous notion of Love."_

"I am going to beat you!" I hollered, punching a fist into the wall behind me.

_"You can't do that. Because now that you've started to fear me, I can consume you. I can make you remember everything. Give me time, and give me back that sword, and you'll find out all that's been keeping you tossing and turning, and burning to know._

"_And once you do find out... you won't want to be human anymore."_

– – –

Threats.

The PAK spoke only in the language of empty, horrible threats.

I felt sick when I woke up the following morning, but at least I was myself. After lying awake in bed for a while, listening to the persistent rain that had continued falling from the night before, I got myself out and into the bathroom, where I washed my face about six times with alternating temperatures of water. Cold to shock myself and warm to soothe. The PAK was quiet for a while... except for one instant, when I glanced at myself in the mirror.

That was when it warned, _"You'll learn it all when you least expect it. Nothing can save you now."_

And then it shut up. For a pretty good long time. Which, in itself, was quite frightening.

When I finally ventured out into the kitchen, after shocking the PAK's voice away again and pulling on a sweatshirt to keep myself comfortable, I noticed that the only other one awake was Professor Membrane. I was really glad that the PAK had chosen this time to go dormant (if it really was dormant, I never could tell), since one of the last things I wanted was to black out and lapse around the Professor with Miyuki as the topic of discussion.

I knew it was kind of unavoidable. I had no idea what, if anything, Miyuki had ever told her husband about me. Probably couldn't have been anything good.

"Ah, good morning," he said to me when he saw me. It was strange seeing his face. Dib resembled him a lot, I noticed. It was also odd that his white lab coat lay neglected over the back of the sofa, and he was wearing nightclothes like any normal person would; black flannel pants and a simple white t-shirt. It was—okay, it was weird. "I was just making coffee. Do you drink coffee?"

"Sometimes. I'll take a cup, thanks."

I had only spoken one-to-one with the Professor maybe... twice before. Once during Tak's first trip to Earth (at which time the Professor had told me some story I couldn't follow about a sleep study, but I'd just nodded and said, "I know what you mean," since it had been a tale of failed experiments, which I, back then, had kind of been a master of), and once just before I'd come to the Corporation in the first place. No way of knowing what the hell we'd talk about now.

The Professor poured me a mug of coffee and asked if I took milk and sugar. I took him up on both offers politely, since I wasn't entirely sure how I liked my coffee yet, and once we were both set up with the rich-smelling morning drink, we sat on either side of the counter. Both of us were kind of empty of things to say. I didn't want to bring up his kids, or his wife, or the two friends he'd seen again only to lose in two different ways. I was concerned for both Victor and Ira, of course, but I didn't know how to mention them around him.

"You've been enjoying Earth, then?" he asked me.

I felt a sting in my chest. "I'm very attached to Earth, yeah, thanks," I said, awkwardly sipping my coffee.

"No need to be nervous, I'm just wondering," said the Professor, adjusting his glasses a bit. I noticed that, on exposed lower right arm, he had two tattoos, each encircling the arm near his elbow, each a string of words. "My wife loved it."

"I'm sorry," I found myself saying.

"It's all right. I'm just hoping things work out better here for you than they did for her."

"Um... thanks..." I managed. I let out a sigh, then, and said, "Professor, is there anything you know about me? I mean, like, bad things?"

"Oh, well, Zim, I doubt you're much after Invasion anymore, isn't that right?"

"Hell, no. But do you know anything _else _about me?"

The Professor sipped his coffee. "Only that you knew the Miyuki I had only learned about," he said rationally. He spoke with a smooth ease; I couldn't tell if it bothered or comforted me. "You knew her quite well, I heard. My wife mentioned you in passing, and said that someday you'd be important to a cause. I'm assuming that cause is this war my son is leading this Corporation to, against the Irkens."

"If you knew, why didn't you help him before?" I wondered.

"Because I went a little crazy." He passed it off as a bad memory, and moved on. I wished I could do that about my own past. But without knowing everything, I couldn't. "I became addicted to excuses. But that's all a story for another time. Tell me, how has Gaz been lately? You're good friends with her, aren't you?"

"I guess. She's okay and... stuff..." Why the fuck was I muttering? I stared down at my coffee cup and grasped it like a safety net. In the past few hours I'd gone from nearly killing a couple people to being afraid of my past and even GIR on a new level to feeling more adolescent than I ever had. I welcomed the awkwardness. It was easier to deal with than, oh, a homicidal, seemingly omniscient PAK that was buried inside me and bent on tearing me apart from the inside. I'd take a day (or more, God, please more) of being a teenager.

That was probably the best way for me to view Professor Membrane, I realized. Not as the guy Miyuki had ended up with, not as this strange media figure, but as Gaz's father. Actually, never mind, I didn't know which was harder to talk to. Someone else just walk in the room please.

The Professor just laughed. "Are you her boyfriend?" he wondered.

"I don't know, not really," I said.

"She's a lot like her mother."

"Yeah," I stupidly agreed. And then pounded my head against the counter. The Professor laughed again, and I just grabbed at my hair and wondered how much weirder this could get. "Ew, don't make me say things like that."

"Sorry. I hope I do get to know you a little, though, Zim," the Professor confessed.

"Meh," I muttered. "I wanna know who I am, too, kind of."

"You're important to Gaz. That's all that matters."

"...Thanks..." I cleared my throat and studied the man. How the hell was this the same person as that aloof Professor Membrane, Walking Name Brand? He seemed so... personable. And yet incredibly intimidating. He was far more intelligent than I'd ever be; I could read that much. At the same time, I was angry at him for not being the father Gaz had probably needed, and impressed that he had been able to find his own path again. Further impressed, yes, that he had probably been a key factor in Miyuki choosing to stay on Earth, rather than return to the Empire.

I wondered how all that had worked. How they'd met, how they'd founded the Swollen Eyeball... if there had been any kind of Irken retaliation back then, or if the Empire just moved on with Spork and then Red without batting an eye. Red couldn't have been in position too long, though, before they'd started looking for her. How the hell had Miyuki's husband handled that? Or had he been able to handle it at all?

This man was such a mystery.

"Hey," I started saying before I could quite think of every word I needed to get out, let alone the right way to say them, "sorry I'm not exactly giving you the best impression of me right now."

The Professor grinned and raised his cup to me. "Much better than anything I'd have expected, honestly. My son made you out to be this high and mighty Irken Invader, Zim."

I laughed. "Not exactly. At all," I said. "I want to be human."

"And I find that admirable."

I could not stop the next words that came out of my mouth. "You don't find it weird that I knew your wife before you did and now I'm kind of in love with your daughter?" FUCK. FUCK. Bad. NO. My eyes flared open and I clamped my mouth shut.

"Gutsy, aren't you?" the Professor chortled. He took a long drink of his coffee.

"Sir, I am so sorry," I said quickly, feeling my face get hot. "I—wow, no, I'm not... I, eh... that was... terrible..."

"That Invader Tenn girl, there," said the Professor. "She told me last night that you've been having a lot of, shall we say, internal struggles?"

"Internal, external; you name it, I've struggled with it," I said, "but what's that got to do with—"

"You're going to make a great human if you can manage to laugh at yourself in the face of adversity like that," Gaz's father grinned. "Better than a lot of us do who were born here. Keep it up, Zim."

"Um. Eh. Thanks, Professor."

He got up to refill his coffee, but he leaned over the table to clamp a hand on my stronger left shoulder before he could go, and said, "You can call me Charles."

Uh... okay! Good? Yes, good. Bonus points or something. I hoped. I hadn't completely pissed off Gaz's mad scientist of a father: that probably was a pretty hefty mission accomplished. I wondered, though, if I could have other opportunities to discuss states of Irken affairs with him. I was sure Dib was kind of first in line for talks with his dad about... probably everything.

But at least I knew I could talk to the man if I needed to. It made me feel a little better that he—well, that he approved of me. It made me want to open up to Gaz even more. But I was a little worried about how Gaz would see me now.

When she came to breakfast that morning, she cast me worried glances. Dib commanded conversation the whole morning, which made sense. Charlotte asked for Gaz and Tenn to assist her during the day; Tenn agreed on the condition that she could later have Red's laptop in order to start tracking fleet movements.

"I mean, it's kinda obvious that if Tak's out there, she's gonna come back," said Tenn. _"Again,"_ she added, rolling her eyes.

"Right," Dib agreed. "No more risks, no more chances. We attack her before she can attack us."

"So we have to wait to hear back from the Tallest," Tenn pointed out. "Isn't that right?"

"Tallest _singular,"_ Gaz muttered. Ira's ribbon was tied into her hair that morning. She was huddling underneath a thick black sweater, and looked as grey as the rainy sky. I wanted to make a move to comfort her, but shirked back. As if she could sense that, she scanned me with her eyes, but said nothing.

"Exactly," said Dib. "So, here's the deal, guys, here's the new plan. I was up all night thinking about this."

"You were not up all night," Lex said in disbelief. She did not leave her boyfriend's side once that morning. I couldn't blame her, after what they'd both been through with Victor. "You weren't, were you?"

"Kinda, hon, sorry," Dib shrugged.

"Don't do that, you'll have no strength."

"I know. Won't happen tonight. My head was just too full." Addressing the rest of us again, Dib continued. "Dad," he said, turning to the Professor, "it's good to have you on board. We got dealt a pretty damn hefty blow last night. Tallest Red's back in position, but he took Ira away from the Corporation right when we really needed him, so I'm really, really upset about that. I don't doubt that you can make up work for both Ira and, well, and Victor, while they aren't currently able to... so, thanks for coming back here. It means a lot."

"I'm glad to have made the right decision," said Charles.

"For once," Charlotte Baudelaire chastised him. Charles took it without fighting her. It was amazing to see that. Someone who knew just how much wrong he'd done, willing to let others berate him for it while still moving forward. If that wasn't a person to look up to...

"Okay, now... we all need to kind of pace ourselves," Dib went on. "I get that. I'll keep in contact with town as best I can. It's really important that our top priority is keeping everyone safe. Lex, hon, if you want, you can help me today just kind of checking in on people."

"Sure," said Lex. "If it's all right, I'd like to take some time for archery practice later as well."

"Yeah, whatever you want. Which brings me to you, Zim," said Dib, glancing and pointing at me. I straightened my back as best I could. It was hard. Gaz gave me a worried look, and it was all I could do to not address her and ignore Dib completely. "What happened to you yesterday? I think everyone needs to know."

I fought it for a minute. I couldn't risk getting kicked out. I couldn't risk losing trust. Breaking the bond I'd forged with the SEC. I couldn't risk that now. But being able to trust meant being able to share the truth, so in the end, I knew what I had to do. "I lapsed," I said, my voice as strong as I could make it.

"Lapsed," Dib repeated.

"Yes. My PAK is still somewhat alive inside me, and it remembers things I don't," I explained. "It hurts and it's driving me crazy, but sometimes it breaks me. "I'm, um, not in the safest spot right now. Mentally."

Dib's eyes narrowed. "You're saying you're unstable?"

"More or less."

Dib exchanged a glance with his sister, with his girlfriend, and finally with Tenn. Then, he picked up the tea he'd brewed for himself and said, "I appreciate your honesty. Change of plans. Tenn, you're with Zim today. Zim, don't do any work on your own and if I forget and schedule you on your own, correct me."

"Eh?" I nearly yelped, flabberghasted. "You're not going to, like, kick me out or anything?"

"I can't risk that right now," Dib said firmly. "We lost Victor and Ira yesterday. And Red, as weird as that sounds to say. We're down three strong members. We still have you, and dammit, Zim, you're good. Okay? So unless I actually see you really fuck up, you're still in."

"Dib, I kind of did fuck up," I said. "I'm only telling you because you need to know!"

"Gaz, what do you think?" Dib asked his sister.

Her eyes had not left me for a second. "I think," she said, "Zim just needs to find his way."

"Okay. Then I agree. Did he fuck up yesterday?"

"Yes."

"But I shouldn't kick him out?"

"No."

"Well, then, that's settled." Dib set his tea down like the final strike of the gavel. "Just watch yourself, Zim, and don't give me any direct reason to start mistrusting you. I want us to all just keep pushing forward. Are we all clear on that?" Everyone was. Even though I was still stunned.

I caught up with Dib after he delegated tasks for pretty much the rest of the week, to thank him again for not automatically jumping down my throat. "I promise I won't give you any reason to doubt my loyalty to Earth and to the SEC in particular," I told him. "I just do want to warn you that sometimes I'm not myself."

"Zim, you've always been weird, okay?" Dib said to defend me. "You've always had a couple extremes, I kind of expect you to fuck up sometimes."

"That's so comforting," I grumbled.

"Look, I have a PAK infestation problem, too, okay?" he hissed at me. "You're not alone. I know how much it sucks."

"You?" I gasped; I couldn't help it.

"My mom's Miyuki, remember? I know what it's like to kind of have things suck for you. A PAK is a heavy burden. What's important to me as more or less your boss—haha, by the way—is that you're being honest and you're currently not letting it get to you. Maybe you lapse here and there, whatever, I might too. Hearing you say that made me realize that I'm not immune."

"You don't have sixty years worth of shit you don't remember, though," I pointed out.

"Look, are you _begging_ me to throw you out?" Dib snapped. "Because I'm happy to have you stick around, but not if you're going to argue with me like that."

I held my hands up in front of me to show I wanted no conflict. "No, no!" I said quickly. "I'm—I'm fine, I'm fine. Again, thank you. Um... maybe there's something you could do for me, though."

Then, I pulled him aside to explain that the PAK wasn't my only problem. I told him about _Osdraken,_ and about my final fight with Skutch. Dib listened intently, nodding here and there with the interest of a scholar. When my story was over, he processed for a moment, then asked, "So how can I help you with that?"

"Maybe if you could just... lock up that one infirmary room?" I asked tepidly. "Just so I don't have any temptation to go near that thing."

"I can do that, but we should find a different spot for it, just so we can use that room if we need to."

"Sure. So long as it's removed with tongs or something. By someone who isn't me. Or you or Gaz, for that matter. I don't think anyone Irken should go near it."

"Could GIR do it?" Dib suggested.

I shuddered, remembering GIR's strange warning to me the night before. But I agreed that maybe he could. After all, GIR kept going on about how it was _too soon_ anyway. I was almost afraid to know what that robot had to say. My past seemed to have been held captive in memory... some of them contained within _Osdraken,_ and some probably in GIR's own memory chip. And both of them had ended up broken.

GIR had come to me as an Invader from a rubbish bin. Red and Ira, well, Purple, had put together spare parts and come up with GIR. But somehow, there was some CPU in there that made GIR know who and what he was, something that had retained his obedience to the Elite Commander. He was probably quite different now than the GIR from back then had been, but still. GIR had existed before.

God, I did not want to lose who I'd become inside who I'd been.

Dib locked up the infirmary that afternoon. _Osdraken's_ whispers persisted for a little while, but eventually died down. I procured a notebook later in the day and wrote down everything that I knew that could help me on my journey, as Miyuki had called it, to earn a soul. My PAK had warned me that I'd never complete my goal.

Bullshit. I'd beat my Fear. Whatever it took.

I just did not know how.

– – –

It rained without ending for two full weeks. The third week saw only enough sun for some cleanup to happen in the fields outside and for the groundskeepers to do some maintenance, but then another week of steady rain came. Nobody really ventured outside.

Professor Membrane said that the rain was probably due to how badly the fleet of Irken ships (but primarily the _Massive)_ had damaged the atmosphere. Because of that claim, Dib and some of the senior Agents ran some tests to see if the rain was acidic. Luckily, it was not, so eventually everyone, grumbling, got back to work, donning layers, raincoats or ponchos, and hats, and arming themselves with umbrellas.

The rain was poison to everybody's moods, though. Tenn just plain refused to go outside lest the wind and rain deal constant damage to the upped security her hologram provided, but—all right, honestly, get this, I am still trying to figure this out—Professor Membrane was just bored enough and helpful enough to devise an underground elevator system that he got right to work installing as a passage between the main headquarters building and the army's training center and _dojo._ It was the first 'expansion' project that the Professor and Dib worked on together, and even though the halls echoed with their constant bickering back and forth as to what was the better blueprint, I saw a positive change in Dib's attitude. And in Gaz's.

Whenever I dared to venture over to do my work with the army (which was one of the main reasons the elevator had to go in, since I refused to go without Tenn, seeing as she could, for lack of a better way of saying it, shock me back into control if something PAK-related happened, like a blackout or worse), I would usually find Lex there. She had taken over for her father in helping the other archers with target practice.

A couple of the international recruits to the SEC army were actually quite gifted artists, and had, during the downpour, painted up new targets in Irken shapes, with the proper sizes. Tenn really took to that idea, and used the laptop Tallest Red had left behind to draft up blueprints of the ships we were bound to see again in combat. She then asked the artists to make scale sculptures of the ships—Munira Bahar, the girl from Morocco, and Luísa Cabral, from Brazil, were skilled in wire sculpture, and quickly set to work creating the skeletons for them under Tenn's supervision. Tenn then marked on each sculpture the weak points the ships had, and estimated how many strikes our army would have to make in order to deal a good bit of damage on those fleet vessels.

I found myself asking Tenn a lot about Irken weaponry, as well. Primarily if she could tell me anything at all about Skutch's weapon. "That thing?" Had Tenn actually been human when we spoke of it that time, she might have shuddered. Her Irken steadfastness, though, saw her only staring blankly ahead of her, her eyebrows knit as she wondered how to describe such a thing. "He named it a long time ago... _Mal..._ something... I can't remember. _Malegritte?_ I think that was it."

"What's it mean?" I wondered. We stood side by side, overseeing Lex's archery lesson. Lex aimed her crossbow and shot in through the neck of a target Agent Bloodrose had painted to look like Tak.

"Damn, she is a good shot," Tenn had to comment.

"I would definitely be okay if Lex could actually decapitate the real Tak."

"I don't care who does it, I'll go ahead and say it: I'm ready for that bitch to just plain die," Tenn admitted. "Tak's been at crap like this forever, she just keeps escaping getting caught."

"Huh," I remarked. "So, wait, you and Skutch were also in the Elite, right? When Red and Tak were?"

"Yeah, but we didn't rank as high," Tenn shrugged. "Skutch was higher'n me, because of his weapon. _Malagritte_ was just a name he came up with," she added, "but it's got ancient Irken roots. Like, there's _redon_ and _draken_ for the sword blades, that kind of weapon, and then Skoodge's were called _chalon—"_

"Sounds like _talon,"_ I noted.

Tenn shrugged. "It's possible. Look, Irk and Earth are kinda linked, right? I think our languages developed kinda the same, too. I'd be interested to learn about it, maybe."

"Earth has more languages, though," I pointed out.

"Right, but Irkens used to have regionalisms, way, way, way back when. Same deal."

"Which explains why Skutch's weapon kinda sounds French?"

"French is what that de Garmeaux couple speaks, yeah?" Tenn guessed.

"Right."

"Okay, yeah, I can see a similarity. But _legrin_ was the Irken word for a weapon kinda like Skutch's," Tenn explained. "'Course, his was the only one ever made like it. No secret it was one of Tallest Miyuki's."

I let out a slight sigh. "Tenn, I'm glad you're around to keep explaining stuff like this to me," I admitted. "Sorry if I ever get asking too much."

"No prob," she said. "I'll admit I probably don't know as much as, say—okay, well, Tak, but I know enough. I've just been careful of what I've said in case it messes with your head too much."

"I really appreciate that," I said. "But I'm kind of ready to learn."

Tenn thought for a moment. In the archery range, Lex shot an Irken target between the eyes. "Talk to me," said Tenn, "when you're ready to take the 'kind of' out of that statement."

Fair enough.

Because I wasn't ready yet.

I did talk to her about Skutch a bit, though. Tenn was the first one to whom I came out with my concern for the fact that I'd fouled up his hands. She muttered something along the lines of, "If he's fighting with Tak, he deserved it," which was when I remembered that Tenn was more prone to trust than empathy, as far as human emotions went, so I took up the conversation again with Gaz.

I had to be so, so careful of what I said to Gaz. On one hand, I wanted to hold her and tell her everything and call her my girlfriend and have her sleep beside me so that I could watch her wake up in the mornings, the way I imagined it kind of was for Dib and Lex. On my last day as a human during the Incident, Gaz and I had gone up to her roof to watch the sun rise together, and she'd drifted to sleep against me twice. God, I'd loved that.

There was no way of knowing if I could ever have that back.

Especially with all this fucking rain.

But Gaz was more of a grey rainy day person than a bright clear sunrise person anyway, and I rather liked that about her, so one afternoon, to beat the boredom during one of the lighter rainfalls, I asked her to come out for a walk with me.

We took only one large black umbrella, which she held between us as our feet squelched through the soaking ground. Now into October, the leaves were still turning and falling, but congealing into a tarnished brown soup over the bright green grass, which made walking the Corporation grounds more like wading or mucking, but we didn't care. Gaz wore, that day, a skirted black waterproof trenchcoat that tied with a sash around her waist, and laced black rainboots. The purple tights she wore under her skirt added a splash of color. In her hair was the now-permanent black ribbon that Ira had left behind, accentuating her spindly ponytail.

It wasn't too cold, so I'd only worn a thin black raincoat, which still let a bit of moisture in to just barely dampen my skin. I kind of liked it, though; it soothed the raw skin on my right arm. The decay had been spreading just a little, stretching toward the crossed scar on my back. The scar on my chest hadn't gone away either, and I was wondering if Skutch's weapon had indeed caused it... or if, somehow, that was _Osdraken's_ fault, too.

"How's the army going?" Gaz asked me. I matched her slightly slower pace.

"Fine," I shrugged. "It, um... it must be nice having your dad around, eh?"

"I guess," said Gaz. "I miss Ira, though."

My heart sank a bit, regardless of how many times she could tell me exactly what her relationship with Ira had been. "You really love him," I guessed.

Gaz held back a sigh. "Like a father," she reiterated.

"Okay," was all I could say.

"Zim, he had a girlfriend," Gaz said firmly.

"O_kay,"_ I repeated. And caught myself. "Look, I'm sorry. This rain is making me touchy."

"Don't make it the rain's fault," Gaz mumbled.

"Eh?"

"Everyone's doing that," she said. "Everyone's blaming the rain. No. It's not the rain. It's the Empire, and everyone knows it. The rain's just trying to clean it up."

"What do you mean?" I wondered, watching her every beautiful move.

"Tak and her army did a lot of damage," Gaz pointed out. "But the more rain we get, the longer I think she'll hold off attacking us again. And after this, it's just gonna start snowing. Of course, that means Red and Ira probably won't come back, either."

Gaz drew in a deep breath, and glanced up at me. "Zim, we all know the next step is leaving. I'm scared to, though."

"Your brother won't make the move till everyone's prepared, though," I said to console her.

"True... I don't know, I'm just nervous about everything. People like Tak and MiMi and Skutch are still out there, and we haven't heard from Red and even then I _hate_ Red right now, and..."

"Gaz, I don't know how much of a problem Skutch is going to be," I admitted.

"Why?" She'd heard the story before, though, so she hung her head. "Oh, right. The sword thing."

"I really messed him up, I think," I was somehow able to say. "He seemed to have the potential to maybe even be a help, too. He helped me out before, like way before he joined Tak. I was kind of hoping he could be like another Tenn for us, but now I'm kind of convinced he's really hurting."

Gaz pursed her lips almost arrogantly. "Why're you so concerned about him?" she asked.

"Honestly, I don't know. It's just haunting me what I did."

"I thought he annoyed you."

"He really does. He _really_ does. And, yeah, he'd joined Tak, but I don't think it was all a conscious decision. I don't know. It just—he seemed like _the one who'd talk,_ you know?"

"Hmm."

We walked on in silence for a few more minutes, until Gaz was the one to say, "I want to see my mom again."

"Yeah?"

"I want her to talk to Dad," Gaz went on. "I want to be able to talk to both of them at once, because I have a feeling I won't understand anything the way I'm supposed to until I do. Hey, Zim?"

"Eh?"

"Does it bug you that I'm half Irken?"

Wow, way to come right out and say it. I prided her in that, though. Gaz was so unbelievably strong. I had no idea how she coped with that fact on her own, just as she never asked me about how I managed to live with that PAK constantly shouting at me in my mind. One thing I truly did have to thank the rain for, though: the PAK had been silent.

It was probably waiting for me to get to another hopefully _good_ point in taking strides toward being human, but still. It had been silent. _Osdraken_ being locked away probably helped that quite a bit, too.

Ugh. How the hell was I going to beat that Fear? The PAK was probably waiting for me to find something else about my past out on my own, and then taunt me with it later and keep trying to rip me apart from the inside. The longer it stayed silent... I had to wonder how much more I'd come to fear it. Him. He was waiting. Waiting for my fear of _him_ to turn into the fear of _myself._

How the hell could I beat that?

"No," I said calmly.

"Really?" Gaz sounded doubtful.

"Really," I assured her. "Maybe I'm way off target about this, but I just feel like, when you love someone, you love all of them. Or, you're supposed to."

Gaz's voice fell to a whisper. "You still love me?"

"Of course I do."

She fell silent again, but her eyes got a little misty as she stared down at her feet. Her boots gathered up sticky autumn leaves as she scraped them against the flooding ground. Cautiously, she shifted her umbrella into her right hand, and touched her left hand to my lower right arm, until she'd taken hold of my wrist. "How's your arm?" she asked me, dismissing the topic of love, or so it seemed.

"Real answer or fake?"

"Zim, don't fake anything with me," she commanded.

Which got me smiling. "Okay," I said. I gave it a moment, then answered honestly, "It stings like hell. Burns, sometimes. I have to lie down with ice packs after army training sometimes." That really was true. Too much activity, and that damn arm would be engulfed in invisible flame, to the point that I had to close my eyes or be in a dimmer room, and just hold ice there until my blood and skin stopped boiling.

"That must really suck." Gaz was nearly choking on her words, but refused to cry.

"Yeah, I mean... it does."

Then it came. The subject we had not discussed since the night it had happened. Gaz stopped walking all together, and I paused in front of her. When she didn't let go of my wrist, I shifted slightly so that I could hold onto her hand instead, and brought my left hand to her waist. Just as I leaned in to be closer, she asked me, "Who are you?"

"Sometimes I wish I knew," I answered. "Sometimes I don't."

"Do you remember what you did to me in the infirmary?"

"Not really."

"What's that mean?"

"All I know is I'm pretty sure I hurt you."

"Well, you did." Her words were clipped, and she glanced up at me only to stare right back down again. "Don't do that anymore."

"Unfortunately, I can't promise that," I told her. "I wish I could."

"Well, try, would you?"

"I'll try."

"Okay, good." Gaz drew in a shaking breath, then continued. "You really scared me that night, Zim. You've scared me before, too. When you just black out like that, it really hurts me just to see that happen to you."

"Sorry..." I tried.

She shook her head, her soft violet hair whipping around against her pale skin as she did. Her knuckles turned white as she tightened her grip on that umbrella. The pattering of raindrops over the stretched black fabric suggested that the downpour was getting worse, but I couldn't feel it. Where I held her, I was warm, and that was all I cared about in that moment. "You can't help it, though, right?" she asked.

"I... well, I mean, I wish I could," I admitted again. "It sucks, constantly fighting my own fucking brain. Sorry, didn't mean to snap."

"It's fine. I snap, too. So does Dib." She attempted humor with, "Must be an Irken thing."

I managed a grin. "Must be."

"Zim?"

"Hmm?"

"You do still want to be human?" Gaz was finally looking at me again, full on. There was a bit of an Irken green ring around her soft brown irises, but the effect was subtle, and alluring. Gaz was being very graceful about accepting her blood relation to Miyuki. She had a sad air around her now that Ira had been taken away, but a strength that came from having her father and brother around. And a softness she only really showed around me. She showed me a lovely concern that, for lack of a better word, humanized her. That made her beautiful.

"Yes," I said, as strongly as I could. "I'll fight until I can be. It means I'll have to fight off my own PAK, and I have no clue how I'm going to be able to do that at all, but I'll figure it out somehow."

"For... me, right?"

I brushed my hand against the Tavic ring I'd given her, and leaned in to give her a light touch of a kiss. I couldn't help it. "Yes."

"Even though my mom's Miyuki and I'm only half?"

"It's about belonging," I found myself saying. Speaking to Gaz was so freeing. I was able to say things I'd never been able to find the words for when describing my own goals to myself. "Maybe you're half, but don't you feel a pull to belong here?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, so do I. We're different, though. You can choose, I can't. Unless I'm one or the other. I don't feel Irken. I never did. I've always been different from the rest of them. I want to belong here."

"Oh." I felt her breath on my face, sweet and simple. Her hair still smelled like lilacs. She tasted like the crisp autumn the world would be around us without all of that rain. Being as gentle as I could, I eased her lips apart with mine, licked my tongue in alongside hers. I only initiated, asking for rather than demanding more of her sweet taste. And she responded; she gave back, allowed more.

I pulled back, to study her expression. Sweet, honest concern; that was what I saw. Compassion. How on Earth could I understand that? ...My fragment of Trust, probably. Fear was getting in the way of fully understanding Love, but—somehow I'd fight past that. I'd fight back. I had to.

"So you've asked me," I said on a sub-tone as I drew her slightly closer, and petted back her bangs, setting them into their angled, precise pattern, framing her face, "but how much of what I am bothers you?"

"A lot, to be honest," Gaz admitted. "I mean, you've hurt me. I've seen you change in front of me. So..."

"So you're afraid of me?" I guessed. "I wouldn't blame you."

"I'm afraid of... _that_ you," said Gaz. "Which is why I've decided something."

"What?" My heart started pounding faster, afraid of more silence.

"I've decided that if you promise not to keep secrets from me, I want to help you make sure that _that_ you goes away." She took in a deep breath, and pressed her face into the crook of my shoulder. "I lost Ira a long time ago, and I got to know him again only for Red to just go take him back. I lost my mom a long time ago and now she's totally different and she's hiding. I don't want to lose anyone else now that I have people I actually like being around."

"Gaz—"

"So tell me whatever I have to do to help save you," she insisted. "I want you to fight, but I want to understand what you might turn into so I can fight, too."

"It might get violent," I warned her. "I'm pretty sure I was a horrible person, Gaz. I was a killer, I did all sorts of terrible things, and—"

"But you don't anymore. Tell me what I have to do to help _you,_ because I'm convinced you can win."

My heart skipped again, and I nudged her back, and tilted her chin up so that we could see eye to eye. "What're you saying?" I breathed out.

Gaz smiled. She stopped the world when she smiled. Her lips formed the perfect suggestion of an arch... nothing definite, but something subtle and calm. "Mom said, when she was here, that souls can be earned, but they can also be taken away. You want a soul, right?"

"Yeah..."

"And to get it you've gotta beat your PAK, right?"

"However that's gonna happen. Yeah."

"So, um... okay, this is... okay. So," said Gaz, "I'm still kind of working out exactly how I, y'know, how I feel about you and stuff, but I mean, we're friends."

"Uh-huh..."

"And maybe your past is really fucking creepy, but if there's a way to beat it, I want to help you. So you can just be you."

"Gaz—"

"Because I kind of want _you,"_ she said, emphasizing her point by prodding my chest lightly with her hand, which she freed from mine only for that purpose, "to be my boyfriend."

I don't know if I laughed with excitement or if I didn't emit any sound at all. I'd asked her back during the Incident to be my girlfriend, but nothing had come of that afterward. If we brought the labels in now, maybe that could provide some kind of security. Like an oath. That we'd stick it out together until we couldn't bear it anymore.

"You want to be my girlfriend?" I asked cautiously.

"I… well, I don't know," she said. "Kind of? It's weird. Maybe we can both kinda figure stuff out if we... are, y'know."

"Gaz, this is incredible..."

"You slip too far and it's off, though," she warned. "I hate labels, but I feel like this might help save you."

"Check that. _You're_ incredible." I was grinning like crazy. She was flushed and nervous. We were such an odd match, but she was right. If we stuck close together, it might help us both cope with the trials that lay ahead.

"I'm not incredible," said Gaz, "I'm just concerned, and I'm still really confused about a lot of stuff, but I'd rather be confused _with_ you instead of both of us just kinda dealing on our own."

"I feel the same way."

"Well, good," Gaz half-muttered. "I guess that's a start."

That was all we needed, too. Just a start.

Keeping her chin tilted up, I leaned in to kiss her again. Gaz grabbed onto the front of my raincoat, and a soft moan rose up from her throat as we fell into each other. Her eyes misted up again, and when I asked her what was wrong, she said, "I'm not crying, it's the rain."

I laughed a little, and swept my hand back through her impossibly soft hair. "Don't blame the rain," I half-whispered, going in for a kiss again.

A gust of wind came and knocked the umbrella away, but Gaz merely saw that as an excuse to have her right hand free. She locked both arms around my neck, and returned the kisses I started. We were soaked, and wind-tossed, and incredibly stupid for standing out there in the downpour. We never did find the umbrella. After a couple minutes, we made a run for it to head back inside. After removing our coats, Gaz pushed her sopping bangs out of her eyes, and laughed as I wrung out her ponytail.

She followed me back toward the bathroom in the hall that I now shared only with Dib and Charles; neither were around, so we didn't have to worry. I found a couple of towels, and we dripped dry on the stark tiled floor. I excused myself for indecency in order to remove and change out my shirt for a dry one, but before I could make my way back to my room for a replacement, Gaz gingerly lay her hands on my chest and lifted herself onto her toes to kiss me.

I had never felt so warm in my life.

Never felt so alive.

I held her close, and she didn't cringe at the raw skin I kept under heavy bandages and gauze. I loved her—because she didn't see the awful things I had done, and the awful thing I could potentially become. She only saw that I wanted to rid myself of that. She only saw potential. Just as I saw hers.

We shivered together against the damp cold left from the downpour. Shivered, and shook, and kept each other warm.

Eventually, I re-dressed in warmer clothes, as did she. Gaz put water on for tea, and joked that she hoped she wouldn't manage to burn it. Armed with a mug of chamomile each, we settled in together on one end of the sofa. It took her a couple moments, but she finally curled up against my side and rested her head in my shoulder. "I'm still kind of awkward about labels," she confessed.

"So we don't have to say them," I said. Even though I really wanted to.

"What do we say instead?"

"That we have a mutual understanding that we're not going to lose each other?" I was pretty proud of that one.

As was she. "I'm okay with that."

I smiled, and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Gaz turned to face me in profile; our lips locked briefly once, and we were both prompted to set down our tea. And for quite some time, we simply held onto each other. Sometimes speaking, occasionally sharing a kiss, sometimes sitting in utter silence.

I had needed this. So, it seemed, had she. We did not use words such as _like_ or _love._ We did not speak labels after the brief instant outside. We just had that mutual understanding, which was more than enough. An understanding that could help her cope with her genetics, and with the loss of her godfather to Red's selfish ways; an understanding that could help me rise just a little above the fear that had crippled me into a corner just a few nights before.

We were now armed with a new weapon.

And just in time, too. Because in early November, the rain became snow, which signaled a very strange season indeed.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Notes:**

Oooohhhh my gosh I'm sorry this went up a little late tonight! But after quite some time of debating which direction to take the _Saga_ now (again it has changed a _lot,_ but I prefer this version), I am very, very proud and happy to have arrived here! ^^ We're officially into Part 3B, and things are really going to start moving forward. :3 Lots of fun stuff coming~~ Woo! Fun, dark, maybe sweet; there's a lot of both dark and sweet stuff coming, haha... I can't write one without the other... XD

Thank you for the kind reviews from last week, too! I really do love reading these reviews, aaahhh ^^;;; I promise I am going to be better/faster about responding now! Because I always do want to respond individually I just freeze up when I start to respond, eep… sorry ^^;

Random note about Skutch's weapon name: it's kind of a horrid amalgam of the Spanish _malegria_ (mix of both 'bad' and 'happiness') and the Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte (the guy famous for the _Treachery of Images_ and _Son of Man_ paintings). These things both in very, very odd ways relate to Skutch. I miss him. We might see him again. :3 I have such a weird way of naming things. XD But names are fun.

So! Welcome to Part 3B officially~! I'm very excited to continue with this part… I'm glad I posted Charles' chapter first, that was the best way for it to flow. Maybe Miyuki will show up again soon…

Many, many thanks for reading! :3 See you again next **Saturday, March 10****th****!**

Much love,

~Jizena

– – –


	28. Rain and Snow 2: Prospects and Projects

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Dib's Records_

My father was getting on my nerves. But it was for all the right reasons, so I actually couldn't complain. I mostly just bothered me that I _wasn't_ finding much fault in Dad anymore. Cut the guy from his contract with the soulless ventures that had exploited his name and turned his talents into deplorable, forgettable, company-altered inventions, and what was left was a pretty decent person.

Dad ended up being really nice, and of course very driven, once I actually started talking to him, but he had a kind of hollowness to him. He'd stare off at nothing, sometimes, in a way I'd caught Ira doing before. Just kind of empty, focusing on the past and cutting off thought before he could get to the point at which everything had gone wrong.

Victor Haynsworth, Ira Murasaki, and my father, once known as Charles Mansfield, were all alike in more ways than one. They were bonded by dedication to their work, honesty around those they loved, and a driving need to study and prove the unexplained. And a moment in their shared history. A year, really, during which their lives took a turn. Each man had lost his wife—or, in Ira's case, girlfriend—and more than a little of his willpower. Only Victor, whose divorce had been a welcome step forward rather than back, whose moral fibers were much more intact, had really survived that year of constant blows. Ira had been _abducted..._ he'd probably gotten it worst; Dad had just kind of let himself go crazy. There was probably even more of a factor that Dad—in a kind of _protect the family_ sort of way—wasn't telling me, but I was fine with not learning everything if I knew it was something that hurt him to talk about, and not just some stupid secret to add to the pile.

But, all the same, he was building himself back. He gave me _compliments,_ and _pointers,_ and _advice_ when I asked for it. "Would you quit helping me out so much?" I mock-complained to him one morning. "It's pissing me off."

To which Dad had just grinned and said, "Your mother used to say the same thing."

I laughed a little, nervously, and changed the subject.

Something huge I noticed about my father, once he started showing himself without that blasted lab coat (granted that this was usually only in the mornings and late at night), was the presence of his tattoos. The two phrases, _La Suerte Este Echada_ and _Alea Jacta Est_ both encircled his lower right arm in precise black script, thus proving his solidarity with Charlotte and the others, as well as humanizing him to me a little more.

Lex asked me, after I'd seen those words on my father's arm, if I was going to get one or the other of the two similar phrases tattooed on me, and I only gave it a little thought before deciding that I didn't. That was something that belonged to their generation, not mine. I'd lead under my own motto... if I could ever figure one out for myself that I liked.

The constant rain we kept getting did hurt everyone's moods. Especially my girlfriend's. Luckily, there was a doctor around who could keep her dad stable in his coma, but without Ira, without knowing his methods, stable was the best we could do. Ira had even known how to work my own healing abilities in... a doctor without that intergalactic knowledge was therefore kind of at a loss. And neither Dad nor I knew enough about medicine to work the Meekrob skills in further.

Lex visited her father daily, but I didn't hear her playing her violin all that much anymore. She'd lead archery practice during the day, help out where she was needed, visit her father, and slip into my room and into my bed at night quietly. I pulled longer hours than she did, so it was not uncommon for me to find her in my bed when I finally had reached the end of my day.

Usually, she'd fall asleep once I came into the room. Sometimes, though, she wanted to talk. I could always tell when Lex had had either a particularly good or particularly bad day when she wanted to talk at night.

One evening, in mid-October, when I slid in under the sheets beside her, Lex draped her arms around me and pressed up close. I slid my left arm around her as well, and held her against me, able to tell from the pattern of her breath that she was becoming more adjusted to the silence that had taken her father's place... that, yes, she felt lonely, but that her drive was slowly returning. Weather-permitting, of course.

The rain pounded heavily against my window.

Lex nestled up against me, and though she was careful as always not to let her hands linger for too long around the area of my back sporting the Meekrob tattoo, she grabbed tight fistfuls of my shirt's fabric. "You smell nice," she murmured into my neck. I responded by kissing her hair. I don't know what she used to keep it so soft, but I loved the effect it had on me. Every effect she had on me, really—from the way she sighed against my skin to the way she held my hand to keep me sane and grounded.

Because I thought of her as my spiritual anchor, it was very hard for me to see her looking so down lately. I did all I could to hold her up, and she thanked me every step of the way, but that damn rain that was shutting us all in had made her close off a bit that week. She was rightfully angry about what had happened to her father, but the worst was knowing that, without Ira to guide us, there was so little we could do.

But we were trying. All we could do was keep going.

"How was your day?" Lex asked me.

"Hmm? Fine," I answered quietly. "Yours?"

"All right. What did you do?"

"Um..." I shifted a little to keep her comfortable, and Lex rested back just enough to watch my eyes as I spoke. She'd been doing that lately. Just watching my eyes. I loved it. "Dad and Tenn and I went over some star charts. I think I've gotta get my old ship up and running so we can try to contact Red, since our communication server can't make calls to the Empire, it can just receive them."

"That's unpleasant," Lex offered.

"No kidding."

"This rain is unpleasant, too."

"Mmhmm," I agreed. Kissing her hair again, I asked her, "How are you, Lex, really?"

She gave herself a few good, long seconds to really process—which itself was proof enough that this was not a simple answer—and then settled on saying, "I feel lost."

"How so?"

"I've never done anything without my father," said Lex. She groaned and nestled up closer. "And I was being such an awful _bitch_ when we first came here, and—"

"No, you weren't. Ssh."

"Yes, I _was._ I was _awful."_

"Lex—" I tried.

"Dib, I can't _take_ this."

"Stop," I coaxed her, stroking her back, "please, hon, ssh. You're fine. You're fine, everything's gonna be okay."

"It's this stupid rain!"

"I know, it's getting to everyone."

"My father is—"

"Your dad's gonna be okay." God, I hoped that was true. Saying it out loud, though, and to her, because I cared so much for her well-being, made me feel a little stronger. Like I could actually do something, to make the situation better. I had a lot riding on me, but having Lex around to talk to made it all a little easier. "Lex, hon, your dad is really proud of you."

"Oh, God..." Lex let out a long sigh. "I'm so sorry," she said. Gently, she placed her right hand on my cheek, and stroked her thumb lightly under my eye, hitting the temple arm of my glasses, which I'd completely forgotten to remove.

"For what?" I wondered, returning the favor by petting back her hair.

"Oh, just—I've been in such a state. It's awful, I know. I hope I'm not embarrassing you."

"You're not," I grinned. "Not at all. Why would you be embarrassing me?"

Lex allowed herself to laugh. "I don't know."

"If anything, I should be asking you if you're..."

"If I'm what?"

I paused to read her eyes. No fear. Maybe Lex could get sad, maybe she could have those down moments as everyone could, but she knew better than anyone I knew how to hide fear. Of course she felt it, everyone does. But she had that talent, probably from years of hunting and study, to hide it. I'd learned, from being with her, how to actually tell when she was afraid of something, but at the same time, I'd still get confused at times. And there was just this one thing... "If you're afraid of me."

I'd been taken over, during the fight in September.

It hadn't happened since, thank God, but nothing—_nothing_ could erase the fact that there were dormant Irken genes in my DNA. That I'd been born with both a human soul and the traces of the Irken parasite that controls the PAK and ties the host to the Empire. It had taken me over once and could very well do it again if it was provoked. That was pretty fucking scary.

Lex, in another stroke of luck, hadn't seen it. I had told her about it, of course, but she hadn't seen it. I shuddered to think of how she'd view me if she had. Even if her response really shouldn't have given me anything to worry about.

"Not that again," was how she started. "Dib, I'm not. You are what you are, and—well, you're you, and I love you."

"Huh?"

"I love you."

A surge hit my chest. "I-I love you, too," I told her. I was more convinced of that, now, than anything else in my life. "Have, um... have we _been_ saying that?" I wondered, realizing how embarrassing a question that really was. "Sorry, it just... sounds really new..."

"Haven't we?" Lex replied. "Well, if not, it's true."

"Yeah." I gave into a bright smile, and pressed even closer against her. Her skin emitted a warmth the likes of which I could not remember ever feeling before. "I love you."

Lex shifted so that she lay slightly draped over me, my head fully back on the pillows. A sting and a rush—but that was all it took.

She studied my eyes.

And leaned in, and kissed me. And tasted like fresh water.

She moved like water, too. Not like the erratic rain that moved without warning, that howled with freezing wind and threatened to flood, but like a calm river with a clear course. So I flowed with her. I had my doubts and fears, since, sure, this was new and uncharted, and honestly I'd just been enjoying what we had in our relationship so much that I'd kind of forgotten that there were still more levels to explore, but every minute that carried us through the evening gave me more confidence.

Despite the fact that we were both counting losses, neither of us could give up. On ourselves, on our professional lives, on each other, on what we'd decided to share.

She initiated it, but I caught on quickly enough.

"Are we, um...?" I did ask, as my girlfriend began to slide my shirt up off of me.

"Your call," she said, with her face pressed close to mine. "Are you ready?"

In the hectic roller-coaster ride that my life had become at fifteen... yeah, I realized; I was. I loved having her there, but—well, kids have to grow up sometime, right? Grow up and realize that there can be more. Deeper and deeper connections. I hadn't exactly had love modeled in my family, so I was nervous about continuing, nervous about actually bringing the word into our relationship, but... I knew it was there. I respected her deeply, and trusted her. She kept me level, and gave me confidence. If there was more I could give her in return, I'd do it.

So, then, there we were. Tangled in the sheets, taking it slow until instinct just plain kicked in, and we connected.

We'd started taking our relationship one step further that night. And as the rain turned to sleet and later to snow, howling wild outside our building, I was proud to know that now we had something, to keep us both safe, and warm, and sane.

– – –

Maybe it was the fact that my damn sex drive had finally kicked in, I don't know, or maybe it was the fact that they were getting more obvious, too, but it didn't take long for me to put two and two together and figure out that Zim was pretty clearly dating my sister, now, too. Lex was all for it, coming at it from the perspective that Gaz really needed to connect with someone, and, I mean, yes, it was great for that reason, and even Dad got it and thought it was great, but—and maybe this was all my old nerves coming back—I got a little worried for her.

No, Zim had not given me much reason in recent weeks, as September moved into October moved into November, to consider him a _threat,_ and I mean, no, I hadn't really thought of him as a _threat,_ per se, in a long time, but while he wasn't scaring me necessarily, he was making me nervous.

The nerves began, more or less, the morning their relationship not only clicked with me, but was obviously pointed out by both of them. I had, for whatever reason, put myself on breakfast rotation with Zim, and by the time Lex had let me out of bed and I'd made myself presentable enough to be out in the kitchen, Zim was there already, coffee brewed, book open on the counter in front of him beside a clipped stack of recipes Charlotte had collected together.

My father had since given in and taken Victor's room, though he was more easily found in his old office than anywhere else (I'd caught him asleep in a chair in that office a few times, too), so the sofa was unoccupied and the two of us were the only ones up and around, even though I was sure Tenn and Charlotte would be around somewhere. Zim didn't really notice me walk in, he was so invested in that book, so, naturally, my first question was, "What're you reading?"

"Eh?" He perked his head up, then smiled a little and held up the book. It had to be Dad's. I couldn't remember seeing a mechanical engineering book like that around before.

"Okay," I said, eyeing the title oddly as I crossed into the kitchen to set water on the stove for tea (because so help me now I was conditioned and I just really couldn't get into coffee). "My question still stands. What are you reading? Or, I mean, why?"

"This is how bored the rain is making me," Zim complained. "Do you see this? Do you _see_ this? I have absolutely nothing else to do, the army can't do anything with me they can't do without, blah, blah, blah, I'm learning about avionics and electrotechnology."

"Aaaaaand, why?" I wondered.

Zim shoved the book aside and leaned back against the counter as he began to instead leaf through the recipe stack. "Because I figure if Earth and Irk are tied, I might be able to figure out more about how to bring down Irken machinery by learning about how things around here work," he said.

I stared at him.

"What?"

"That's..." I said, "incredibly reasonable."

Zim's eyebrows knit together as he postulated my reaction. He then shrugged and looked back at the recipes. "I'm glad you think so," he said. After a few seconds of pretending to be looking at the words on pages, though, he sighed and set down the stack, then, moving quickly, grabbed a mug out of the cabinet by the fridge, and poured himself a pretty good helping of coffee. As he was scouring the fridge for cream, he asked, "So, completely seriously here, Dib, um... I _am_ doing a good job with stuff around here?"

"Yeah," I answered. Even if his asking made me skeptical. "Why?"

He stirred cream into his coffee, returned the carton to the fridge, then leaned back against the large white appliance as he continued speaking to me, his hands cupped around the coffee mug as if to hold in the heat the liquid provided. "Sorry if I'm asking a lot," he said. "Might be the rain making us all kind of crazy. Anyway, it's just that, well, nobody's really brought up the aftermath lately. Are we all kinda dealing with it on our own terms, or hiding it, or what?"

"What, like losing Victor and Ira and stuff?" Yeah, I couldn't even say that without feeling a pit dig itself into my gut. Death is a hard thing to deal with, but the loss of someone still alive is brutal. We hadn't heard from Red and certainly not from Ira. Victor was far from waking up. They were _there,_ but... not. And it hurt. And, no, nobody liked talking about it.

"Yeah, them, and..."

I got it. Yeah. "Zim, that room is still locked up," I assured him. He just nodded stiffly. "Okay," I said when he wasn't about to say any more himself, "is this something you _want_ to talk about? Because if so, I mean, I'm all ears."

"Why?" he asked.

"Why am I okay with listening?"

"Yeah."

I shrugged. My tea water started to boil, but I waited for the whistle, as Lex had taught me; as Ira and Victor both had insisted upon. "Zim, I don't think of you as a threat anymore," I came right out and said. "You've been really, really helpful in the Corporation, and I figure if there's really something you're hiding, you have enough of a conscience to come clean with it. Put briefly, I trust you. I mean, it'd be kind of stupid for you if you want to give me reason to not trust you. Should I not?"

"No, no, you can trust me, and thank you for doing so, by the way," said Zim, quickly.

"Sure."

"But it's that _PAK_ thing. I don't know how much longer I can actually be human before it starts really eating at me."

"So stop it before it can, I don't know!"

"Yeah, I don't know how easy that's gonna be."

"Zim, what do you _want?"_ I demanded. "I'm getting kind of aggravated by this conversation."

"Okay," he said, "okay. It's—yeah, that sword is an awful, awful thing and I have no clue how I formed it, but... now you are really not going to believe me about this, but there are things from my past—"

"The one you don't remember," I prompted, nodding.

"Right, that. Yes. And, eh... I think GIR's one of them."

I had noticed that Zim was being a little skittish around the robot lately, though I hadn't thought to bring it up. Now that he himself mentioned it... yes, I got nervous. And the fact that his past and his still-existing Irken PAK were the things that bothered _him,_ they in turn bothered _me._ When talking to him, I had to be professional. A lot of people had their quirks, and Zim was being more trustworthy than not, so I chose to leave those darker parts of him for things he could explain when he was ready. The more he pussyfooted around them as subjects, though, the more I wondered if I _should_ be nervous.

"GIR," I repeated skeptically.

"Yes."

"The little insane robot who just yesterday learned the word _mozzarella_ and now can't stop screaming it?"

"...Yes."

"Okay, maybe I _am_ worried about you," I said, shooting Zim a look. "I've called you crazy before, don't make me really mean it. I doubt you'd like the psych ward." I shuddered, and turned to the now-whistling tea kettle. "I can say that from experience, Zim."

"I know how stupid it sounds," he said, "and I'm sorry about those times you had to get locked up, but—"

"Or put in crazy buckets," I reminded him. Our town sucks like that.

"Or put in crazy buckets, but if y—"

"Or given detention because of my studies," I added.

"Or gi—okay, some of those, no, you kind of deserved those, but—"

"Don't be an asshole," I warned him as I calmly took out Ira's neatly-organized box of tea. When I opened it I could almost hear my sister's sigh. She missed Ira more than I could even describe, and I knew it. I mean, I missed him, too, and I missed Victor in the same way. We had our real dad, which was great, but we'd lost the two men we'd really started to look up to. What worried me a little more, too, was that Gaz still didn't have much of a mother figure in her life. She didn't know Charlotte very well (and, I mean, the woman worked really hard and was rarely around... kind of like Dad), nor Bloodrose, and there weren't many other women around. So the fact that she'd found Ira was huge... but even then, he was a _father_ figure; nobody could replace Gaz's clinging notion of our mom as an actually decent person. I selected an Assam blend and scalded a mug before starting to steep the teabag.

"I'm not being an asshole," Zim snapped, "I'm just trying to say, yes, it sounds stupid, but I'm being honest about the things that I find troubling!" He paused, then added, "How would one actually _be_ an asshole, anyway? I mean, all these vulgar descriptions fo—"

_"ANYWAY,"_ I interrupted. My tea had begun steeping, so I turned back to face Zim, knowing that at this rate we'd make nothing for breakfast and everyone would get toast or cereal (not that anyone was minding toast or cereal lately, mind you). "So... why's GIR something you're nervous about?"

Zim sighed and insisted, "Dib, you've seen me black out, haven't you? Or I've at least come clean to you about it. And thank you for understanding and all, but I have got one hell of an elusively terrifying PAK somewhere in here. I'm going to win against it—eh, somehow—but the thing is, GIR seems to remember past stuff that I don't. When he's functioning."

"Which is rarely," I pointed out. "We'll deal with it as it comes."

"Why _are_ you being so accepting of stuff lately?" Zim wondered, rolling his eyes and coming back to the counter to flip through the recipes.

"Maybe I'm just a good leader," I said, reaching for the compliment. I waited a few seconds, then added, "My girlfriend thinks I am."

"Well, good for you," said Zim, clearly new at passing around phrases like that. "Is, eh... is she doing okay?" he then asked. He really was new at that, but what I was actually able to read about him now was that he was trying. He was being sincere. The more he was trying to prove himself as a human, the more I was keeping myself on my toes about figuring out what one actually was.

_Huh,_ I realized. _Maybe we really kind of are at the same level on this..._

"I mean," Zim continued, "I know how Gaz is taking the whole thing about Ira, seeing as how he was _like_ family. Victor _is_ family to Lex, so..." He shrugged. "I can't imagine what it's like to have a family at all, so I'd imagine it's painful."

"It... yeah," I had to agree with him. Suddenly, my stomach flipped. And I thought about what Zim had been saying about being nervous about his PAK. Ugh, I really was going back and forth about the guy. All of this sincerity—what if he really did have a PAK that could shatter the human tendencies he'd been working so hard to develop? Huh. More on that later, I told myself. For now, just take the sympathy. "Yeah, it is hard. She's doing a little better, thanks."

"Sure." Zim showed a nervous grin, as if he, too, was having those thoughts. I almost wanted to break and tell him everything about my own PAK experience, but the thing about Zim now was that he just didn't like talking about Irken things... kind of at all. And anything mentioned might mean a relapse. Thin ice. But at least we knew. "Are we making anything for breakfast? Gaz likes Eggs Benedict."

"Too complicated," I complained. "Choose something better."

"Well, what does _your_ girlfriend like?" he taunted me.

"Quiche."

"Oh and that doesn't take forever to make! _You_ can go for it, I _don't care."_

"Are we honest to God having a domestic argument about our girlfriends?" I groaned, rubbing my eyes and pushing my glasses up in the process.

"Sounds like it," Zim laughed.

"Are we both _that_ pussy-whipped?"

"Okay, that one... I don't know what it means."

"I won't explain it, then."

"Thank you?"

"Fuck it," I groaned, smacking the counter. "We're eating toast. Cut up some fruit so everyone thinks we made an effort."

"You _are_ a good leader," Zim mocked me. I said nothing, but shot him a glare, and silently stirred brown sugar into my tea.

As I thought about it, though, I finally asked, while Zim did indeed head to the fridge for grapes and apples, "So... you are dating my sister, right?"

"...Yeah..." he said, nervously but proudly when he stood back with the gathered food.

"You're expecting me to protest it, aren't you?" I guessed. Somehow, I was laughing.

"I mean, kind of."

"Zim, don't worry about it," I said. "I mean, don't talk about whatever you guys do in explicit detail around me, _please,_ but... I mean, whatever."

"That's it?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, Zim, that's it."

"Just... _whatever."_

"Yes!" I nearly exploded at him, so close to just punching him for beleaguering the point.

"Okay!" he gave in. He found bananas and oranges as well, and selected a large bamboo cutting board in order to set about cutting up the selections. Charged with the full task, he continued, "No details, I promise, but can I tell you something?"

"Um... sure?"

"Your sister," Zim said, "is a beautiful person. Especially when she smiles."

"Oh," I said, unsure of how exactly to react. "Um. Thanks." I mean, I knew that he thought that. And I knew how messed up Gaz had been before he came back. Of course Gaz felt better off when Zim was around. Which was exactly why I'd started giving him chances in the first place.

No, I wasn't going to threaten him or anything. I felt like we didn't have to state things we already knew about boundaries. I'd said no explicit details, but it was pretty clear from the way they flirted that they weren't sleeping together. The other unspoken rule was simply, _Don't hurt her, _but, again, the fact that Gaz seemed to feel safer when he was around meant, okay, fine, nothing to worry about.

Nothing at all to worry about.

Others started filtering in at that point, so our minor—and stupid—conversation ended right around there. My father laughed at me for the toast choice, so to get back at him, I changed the schedule so that he was in charge of both breakfast and dinner the following day. (With supervision of course. Because I was still kind of convinced that my dad hardly ate anything, due to his family history of just leaving me and Gaz with horribly, horribly random things for dinner all the time.)

Tenn joined us for breakfast, and upon seeing that it was pretty much 'toast and whatever the hell else you feel like eating' (Lex, for one, had yogurt), she laughed and ate a packed-up and refrigerated, but still impressive-looking, Irken sandwich in front of us, saying, "I'm just gonna be over here eating something actually good."

She was probably right. Oh, well. Every now and then effort can be sacrificed on something like breakfast.

– – –

Gaz stayed pretty firmly stationed at Zim's side throughout the morning, well into the afternoon, and on through into the snow that came in mid- and late November. So far... nothing to worry about. Just as I thought. Zim still shirked away from having to be near GIR for too long, and asked me about every three days if the room with that sword was still locked up. I kept on assuring him that, _yes,_ it was fine, and we'd deal with a threat if it came up.

The thing about snow that was a little more could be done around the complex. Sure, the ground was still wet as hell from all the rain, but at least the snow was more bearable to walk through, and wasn't as bothersome. And Zim and Tenn were right about the fact that it would keep the Irkens away from Earth for a while.

There was still no excuse, however, for Red's silence, so the very first project of the saving snow was getting my old Spittle Runner ready to see some action again. I had found that thing crashed in my back yard after Tak's very first trip to Earth; it had taken me to Meekrob and back. Now, it was going to be my primary source of communication with the Empire, even if that meant disassembling it and turning it into something of an office computer. Whatever we could do with it, it was sure to be of a help.

When we'd first come to the complex, Charlotte had hidden it for me behind the dojo area, in a smaller shed building that nobody really cared much for, or usually even noticed at all. Sometimes even I forgot that it was there.

When I finally went to uncover it, Lex, Gaz, Zim, Tenn, and even GIR accompanied me. Lex was the only one who had never seen it before, and her first comment on it was that she thought it was "lovely."

"Far cry from that," I had to say, coughing as I dusted the side off with the sleeve of my coat. "Ugh, this thing's really just been sitting here, hasn't it? Someone get the light." One good thing about the shed: it had working electricity.

Zim flicked on the light, then walked back over to the rest of us. GIR hopped up on top of the ship and poked the roof a little. The entire ship was in desperate need of a paint job, not to mention a few new parts.

"Heh," I remarked, opening the windshield to take a look at the inside and the controls, "cockpit's kinda small, isn't it?" Sure, it had been a pretty good fit when I was eleven, but most personal Irken ships weren't designed for anyone over five feet. I'd managed, on the way to and from Meekrob, but now it would be just plain stupid. And trying to get more than one person inside (unless GIR was the second passenger) was absolutely impossible.

"Yeeeeah, you're gonna want a new roof," Tenn suggested. She opened the windshield hatch and poked around at the controls. "But, here's the thing, d'you actually wanna fly this thing again, or just extract the computer?"

I shrugged. "I mean, if we can keep it flying, that'd be great, but it's not an ideal size."

"I can fix that," said Tenn.

"Tenn, I'm so glad you can give us pointers," said Gaz, shivering a bit. She was wearing Zim's sweatshirt (which she claimed, after all these years, was still just as soft as it had been when she'd first received it) and a purple overcoat, but she still seemed to be more affected by the weather than the rest of us.

With a slight, cautious glance over at me, Zim walked up to my sister and asked, "Are you cold?"

I knew what was coming, so when Gaz, still shivering, blushed a bit and nodded slightly, I walked around to the other side of the ship, pretending to look for rust when really I was just escaping from having to see something I still wasn't prepared to see.

When I knealt to get a look at the side engine, Lex came up behind me and knealt to where I was, putting her hands on my shoulders. "Giving them room?" she asked in a slight whisper.

"Yes, I'm givi—no!" I yelped, not even realizing what I had almost said.

"Something wrong, Dib?" Gaz called over.

"Uh... yeah, just... little bit of crap over here," I made up quickly. "Bad reaction; I can clean it up pretty easily."

Lex laughed silently and pressed closer, draping her arms over my shoulders and clasping her hands loosely. "Come on, you're being silly," she said.

"Yeah..." I sighed, resting a hand against the cold metal of the ship. "I just... don't know if I should still be nervous about him or not," I said, keeping my voice down. "It's almost like he wants me to be. And I know there's something dark—" I really could not make my mind up about him. Which was why I usually tried to ignore it. Still, though—_still,_ if _even he_ insisted...

"But there's something pure, too. Just like you, love. Come on, get up, this craft isn't going to fix itself." That said, Lex kissed me on the cheek and stood, and I rose to meet her just a couple seconds after.

I cleared my throat and walked around to the other side again, saying quickly to keep my mind off other things, "So, we know the roof's in definite need of repair. Anything else, Tenn?"

"Yeah," she said. "You shouldn't leave this thing sitting untouched for over a year." She patted the side. "Irken ships are used to being flown and repaired _constantly._ It's gonna need more fuel if you want it to fly, and, sorry, but I'm not the best with computers. We're gonna have to extract the mainframe and work on it in pieces."

"That should be a fun project, though, right?" Gaz chimed, looking over at me. "It'll be like creating something new entirely."

Zim had given her the gloves he'd been wearing, I noticed... and she was currently in his arms. He was holding her gently from behind, still looking a little cautious but seeming to enjoy it nonetheless. He couldn't have just given her that thick jacket he was wearing, could he? Just _had_ to hold her. Then again, I'd've been doing the same thing for my own girlfriend.

Nothing wrong. Nothing at all wrong.

"Well," Lex piped up, clapping her hands together once, "when shall we get started? I need a good activity to keep me thinking and moving."

"Should we start now?" Zim wondered, pulling back away from Gaz.

"Ack, no!" Gaz yipped, shivering again. "God, it's freezing, I'm freezing!"

Zim smiled sadly and rested his hands on her shoulders, then he sighed a bit and just took off his jacket, resting it on Gaz's shoulders, wrapping it around her. "I expect this one back," he said, laughing a little afterwards.

"Yeah, it's a bit cold now," I admitted. "Temperature should be up a little tomorrow; let's start ripping this thing apart then."

"Know what you need?" GIR asked, doing a little jig on top of the Spittle Runner, then landing ass first on the cockpit windshield and pointing a finger right in my face.

Zim winced.

"Um... crescent wrenches?" I tried.

"Chocolate pudding!"

I shrugged over at my girlfriend, who laughed musically, then picked GIR up and held him out in front of her. "That actually sounds delightful," she said with a trill. "I'll make hot pudding the moment we get back indoors where there's heat."

"Yay, heat," Gaz remarked, sighing out intentionally so that we could see her breath in the cold air. She shivered again and wrapped Zim's jacket around herself even more.

While the girls discussed the future of the Runner's computer with Tenn, I pulled Zim to the side to inquire more about his unease with GIR. The basics, I learned, were that GIR could occasionally go into what, under proper SIR regulation, was called 'duty mode.' However, that was usually something that the master could control. GIR seemed to be on a strict schedule of controlling himself, which was highly irregular. I, of course, argued that _GIR_ was highly irregular, so that should be no surprise.

"No," Zim said firmly. "Dib, he's hiding something. I'm pretty sure it all has to do with his acronym."

"What, like what the letters are actually for?"

"I'm convinced it's something completely different from anything else under current regulation. And then at the same time I don't want to think about it—"

"Zim, we all have things about ourselves we'd rather not think of," I argued. "I'm still on edge about when the hell Miyuki's gonna show back up. We've both got PAK issues, and I for one am starting to get scared about how Gaz fits into _that_ equation—"

"Oh, no, I am, too," Zim insisted.

"Then let's just hold on and take this one project at a time. Look, we're using the Runner's computer to try to get back through to Red. Ask him about GIR, all right? He'd know."

Zim had to agree, and the conversation was left there. GIR gave us no reason to worry, that day, and much of the rest of the afternoon was passed fairly leasurely, with us going over blueprints with Tenn about how to extract the computer. Dad wanted to take a closer look at the ship as well, and offered to help with the project, which was just about the perfect thing for him to be doing.

Dad had gotten a couple of calls—which, thank God, Charlotte had flagged—from his old company. He wanted nothing to do with them. It was surreal, but wonderful.

We began repairs the next day, and continued working on the ship into December. I'd decided that, after repurposing the computer once, I did eventually want the ship to fly again, so the projects became simultaneous. The roof was the first thing to go—that alone took about half a day—and from there we worked on raising the interior and lengthening the cockpit without damaging the navigational computer system and the core interface.

Gaz mainly dealt with the computers alongside Dad, and Lex helped with the interior "redesign" (which was really just hacking apart everything that was there, ready to replace it with better things) while Zim and I handled the heavier lifting when it came to spare and replacement parts and outside repair. Tenn was the undisputable leader of the project, constantly flying back and forth between the two groups, though she admitted that someone else would probably be better for the computer work than she.

"You're doing such a great job, though, Tenn," I congratulated her. "I can't thank you enough for being on our side."

"What can I say," she shrugged. "I wanna side with intelligence."

"That is the best compliment I have ever gotten," I told her. And it was pretty much true. Years of being called crazy had made me warm up to anyone, pretty much instantly, who basically told me I wasn't. Bonus points for actually complimenting my intelligence, too. And Charlotte had taught me to take a compliment to the Corporation as a compliment to myself. Which Dad told me not to get caught up in (and I _really_ trusted his advice on that), but still; a compliment here and there was nice.

Even though I was pretty sure there was some Irken intelligence out there that we still hadn't learned about. Something about the Brains we all had yet to learn. The battle was coming; I knew it. And we could not go in even marginally unprepared. This was all or nothing, with as many Irkens on our side as possible.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Every time Zim and Dib interact like this, I just keep thinking dumb things like, in another reality, they'd probably be college roommates who just got on each other's nerves all the time. Or something. ZADBromance. It's reeeeeallllll. D: I can't unsay that now, oh God what have I just—

Also, Dib, sometimes you are your own worst critic. I find that he essentially narrates arguments with himself, but that's part of the fun of him. ^^;;

This message brought to you by really random thoughts while editing at 1AM. XD

Another chapter after this, so a bit more of a note there! I just had to get that bromance thing off my chest. Wheeeeeee~

~Jizena

– – –


	29. Rain and Snow 3: Soldier's Return

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

**NOTICE:** I did post _two_ chapters this week, yay! Please be sure to click back one so you don't miss chapter 28! :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Gaz's Records_

Starting up an actual relationship with Zim was one of the best things either of us had recently done. It was just that nice, calm, official way of saying, okay, yeah, if I felt bad about anything, I could go to him. I could let my guard down a little more, give him that satisfaction of protecting me... and have satisfaction in that for myself as well. We could kiss without shame, understood and respected boundaries with each other, and between us and others. Dib put Zim and I on rotation for meals together a lot, and whenever we were together on breakfast, we'd both wake up early and spend an extra half hour or so, just talking, holding each other, having tea and talking about nothing to do with the war.

Through November, I did start picking up my guitar a little more, and when I was playing it in the common room one evening, with only Zim around to hear me, I absentmindedly picked out "My Bloody Valentine."

_"I don't know much at all/ I don't know wrong from right..."_

"Oh, I know that one," Zim said, sounding excited. He walked in from the kitchen, mug of tea in hand, and pulled the hassock up to where I was seated already on the sofa. "I didn't know you could play that!"

"It, uh—it comes and goes," I told him.

He just smiled, leaned in, and left a kiss on my cheek. It warmed me; I could tell he'd selected a peppermint tea. And then I could taste it, when he placed his lips to mine, when I gave back with a kiss myself.

"Thanks for listening," I added, modestly.

"I love hearing you play," Zim said, sitting back to allow me room with my midnight black guitar. "I don't know much about music or anything, but I kinda like that."

"Like not knowing?"

"No, like that you're the one introducing me to it."

I laughed. "Are you actually saying sweet stuff like that," I had to ask, "or are you practicing?"

"Practice how?" he pointed out.

"Well, then, you're welcome," I grinned.

There were no _I love yous,_ nothing more physically demanding than a tight embrace or a deep kiss, but we were together. My senses felt clearer. I felt like I'd just woken up. This was what I'd been wanting since the Incident ended, and I couldn't risk ruining it.

Every once in a while, Zim would feel what he called a 'lapse,' during which he'd have to quietly dismiss himself to deal with a particularly bothersome problem with his internal PAK, or the effect it was having on his skin or in his blood. I kept him far, far away from the infirmary room in which the sword _Osdraken_ was locked up, though, and he constantly thanked me for it. I saved him from a few blackouts, too, which was part of my whole point in wanting to date _now,_ just fucking _now,_ since I was afraid that any kind of distancing could ruin him and twist him away from us; away from me in particular. No risks. One day at a time.

We all kept ourselves busy working on the computer from Dib's Spittle Runner, which Dad and I got running just fine outside of its usual hookup, but it was missing a part, or a jolt or something, that could get it actually rigged to the Empire's satellites. I suggested that maybe GIR could do something, but Zim vehemently refused that we involve GIR.

I don't know how he'd gone to become kind of wary of the robot, but I didn't question it much. The less we had to deal with GIR the better. He annoyed me anyway. And the thing he'd said during the Incident about something being _too soon_ still bugged me. I didn't want to think about that.

– – –

With all of us frustrated at the computer being incompatible with everything we tried, Lex suggested we all take a breather by walking through the snow and into town. Since Dib and Lex counted their anniversary as December seventh, being the day they'd started dating, the two decided what the hell and invited me and Zim along with them on a trip into town on that day, which was pretty perfect, since for once there was absolutely no condensation, just about a foot of snow on the ground, through which the Corporation groundskeeping crew (namely, Agent Cthulhu and a host of swear words in a couple different languages) had cleared some paths, so the march out through the forest wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Dib and Lex diverted, and rightfully so, to have lunch together, but wanted to meet up with us later. Since my date with Zim during the Incident, and our journey into town before, had just pretty much involved walking through town, we decided to continue in that vein and took a walk through the snow-covered streets. I wore black leather gloves, and he wore a knit blend, but I could still feel the added heat from his palm when our hands clasped together.

Zim suggested that we find lunch ourselves, and while sushi was on our minds—being one of our options on the Incident date—I just could not bring myself to be anywhere near anyone speaking even a few words of Japanese, not with Ira gone. He'd slipped a word or two of his native language into some things he'd say... particularly when insulting Red... and it was just too much. I was still wearing his ribbon in my hair.

Three months gone, and no word.

I really missed my godfather.

Which Zim caught onto, and he was very, very sweet about keeping my mind on the present instead. We ate at the little café attached to the museum, and sought out the coffee shop we'd been to the Halloween prior, on our last sort-of date. I called Lex to have her drag Dib there with her once they'd finished up so we could meet, and Zim and I lingered at the window to watch life pass by outside.

I felt like I'd been doing that a lot. Just... watching life. Taking things as they came. I loved having Dad around, I was really enjoying dating Zim, I loved seeing my brother happy in his own relationship. I missed my godfather. I missed my mom; my real mom, the one who'd seemed to actually care about us.

I feared the future.

"What's up?" Zim asked me, when I'd been staring out the window for probably a little too long.

"Huh? Nothing," I said, snapping myself back to focus on him. "I just got kinda out there."

"It's all right." He'd perfected this perfect smile. Bright and warm, spring in the dead of winter. I don't know how he did it. I still couldn't believe that this was the same person who'd once tried—and failed, failed, _failed—_to take over the Earth for no good reason.

So much had changed. Even among the leaders of the Empire.

Goddammit, Red. I really wanted to wring that Tallest's neck. For what he'd done to Ira, for not getting back to us. The longer we went hearing nothing, the angrier I was. But then I'd always remind myself of the last thing I had heard Red say in his human form. I was convinced that he could feel love. He just didn't know what to do with it, or how to be fair. So he just ended up hurting people in the process. Which was probably much too human a trait for him to be comfortable with, so he just went right on being a jerk.

"You thinking about Ira again?" Zim guessed.

"Sorry," I said, staring down at my hands. We had yet to order, since when we'd entered there'd been a pretty long line. I shifted my gaze slightly to the counter, and noticed that the same young blonde barista was working. Didn't she have school? What day was it? Wow, I'd lost touch.

Zim took hold of my hands from across our little round table. "It's fine," he assured me again. "Hey," he prompted, kindly. I looked up at him, and his calming gaze got a smile out of me. How the hell was he not completely human yet? That kind of scared me. I'd been able to save him from blackouts, but there was a dark Irken past in there somewhere. That Commander still existed. I really, really didn't want to meet him again. Now answer me _that._ Forget the Invader. It was the Commander I couldn't place as the same person... "Can I tell you something?"

"Hmm?"

"You're doing... just... such a wonderful job," Zim complimented me, "saying that you want to help save me. I really respect that, I love that, I do. It's wonderful that you want to help people, Gaz, and you make good on your promises. So I think you can save Ira."

"You think?"

"Absolutely." He then gave a more cautious smile, and said, "But can I be selfish today and ask that we talk about that another time?"

"Sure," I said. "I don't want to dwell on that, either."

Zim rose slightly, and kissed my cheek as he drew me to standing a well. "Come on," he prompted. "Let's figure out what we're gonna have to drink."

"Are you buying?" I asked, hugging him from the side as we approached the counter.

"I _suppose."_ He feigned an eye-roll.

"Well, you'd better, or else."

"Don't wanna know what the _or else_ is, so you win," Zim laughed.

The café was, of course, not decked out in its Halloween glamour, and something that I highly appreciated was that, seven days into December, it had not barfed Christmas all over the place, either. Commercialism of the seasons was something we didn't get at the complex—part of the reason I enjoyed living there now—so it was comforting to not have holiday spending reminders everywhere. In fact, the coffee shop kind of had is own thing going on. Caliban, it was called, after the _Tempest_ character, no doubt, and looked, now that the fake cobwebs were gone, like a library. High ceilings and polished wooden walls and floors. It was pleasant.

The space behind the counter looked kind of like a 1980s punk clusterfuck, though, which was kind of hilarious given the more professional decor elsewhere around us. "Oh, hey," the blonde girl behind the counter greeted us. "I kinda recognize you guys. You come in last year or something?"

"Yeah, we did," I confirmed.

She laughed. "Strict rule of one latte a year?"

"Mostly just a tight schedule," Zim offered as a response to that.

"Well, I'm glad you came back here, that's a good sign. So what's up? Coffee? Tea? Both?"

"How does both work?" I wondered. Ira would probably scream.

"Chai bomb," the girl grinned. "For you, definitely. You'll love it. But you," she said, pointing to Zim, "are a coffee guy, right?"

"And you're... psychic?"

"Nope," the barista grinned. Just super-attentive."

"Then I'll trust your decision."

_"Sweet,"_ the girl congratulated herself. She turned to mark down a hash mark on a chalkboard behind her. "That's one for Mary Jane. Me and the other dude who works here have this thing going where whoever can guess drinks for customers more wins. I dunno what we win, but as long as I win, I don't care." And I instantly thought that if I were still going to school, I would probably be able to make friends with her.

I appreciated just about everything about that coffee shop. The relaxed atmosphere—even with the behind-the-counter clusterfuck—and the amicable, but not annoyingly bright, attitude of the barista—Mary Jane, she'd called herself—and, yeah, the drinks. She brought out a combination of chai and espresso for me (sorry, Ira, it was amazing) and a spiced coffee of sorts for... my boyfriend (aaahhh)... and we were able to sit there with no interruption for a good while before being joined by Lex and Dib.

"This has _got_ to be the most normal thing I've done in... a very long time," Lex commented once she'd settled in with the pot of tea she and Dib were sharing.

"No kidding," my brother agreed.

None of us said it, but we all shared the feeling that this was going to be the _last_ 'most normal thing' for a while. So we enjoyed our time at the coffee shop as long as we could, and when we started back, I began to get the sick feeling that something was coming. After all, there was still no snow in the sky.

And then Dad called.

He called as we were walking, as we had just made it to the outskirts of Corporation property. And he told us, "We've got a visitor."

"On our way," said Dib, who'd received the call. "Don't let anything get out of hand until we get there, all right?"

"I'll hold things down," I heard Dad assure him.

We moved quickly after that. I had to say, though, I looked forward to the day that I could actually go on a date with Zim and something awful _didn't_ have to happen afterward. As it turned out, though, this 'visitor' didn't exactly bring an awful circumstance with him as far as immediate threats went, but still.

_Still._ He was Irken.

And familiar. And we were not okay with seeing him.

Dad, Tenn, and Charlotte stood between him and the headquarters building, on the defensive. There was only one visitor... only one... but it had to be him.

Had to be Skutch.

The young man with the wild red-orange hair did not greet us in his usual sardonic way. He hardly greeted us at all. While his past appearances on the complex had seen him literally looking down his nose at us, he now had his chin tilted down. His posture was altogether nowhere near as strong as it had previously been.

Despite the freezing air, he was not wearing long sleeves. He wore thick gloves and boots, suggesting that he was at least protecting his hands and feet from the bitter cold, but he was otherwise not dressed for the weather. Not that Irkens really needed to dress much for weather, but still. The multi-zippered red jacket he had been wearing during the two Elite attacks had been replaced with a short-sleeved version, with the number _80891_ stitched in black on the back. As soon as Dib saw that, I saw him tense.

Invader Skutch was not here with a threat of another attack.

He'd come with a warning.

_80891._ Tak still had it in her memory: August 8th, 1991, my brother's birthday. And next year, he'd be sixteen. The same age he'd been during the Incident.

Well, fuck.

Skutch glanced over his shoulder at us, his erratic bangs falling into his face so I could not clearly determine his expression. Then, when he looked down again, he slowly crouched down to gingerly remove his small knife from his steel-toed black boot.

Dib stepped in front of all of us and gathered energy in both of his hands, while Zim, too, pushed me behind him and prepared himself as best he could. On the other side, toward the building, Tenn drew a gun, and my father yanked on his electrically-charged gloves. Silently, behind my—boyfriend... (I really had to stop yelling at myself about labels; dammit, I did kind of like being able to say that... if only just to myself...) I, too, gathered up a small bit of energy in one hand. Just in case.

Skutch stood back, still moving slowly, and straightened. He held in one gloved hand his tiny weapon, which he then shifted into its _manriki_ form. "Skutch!" my brother called over. "Is this an ambush? What's going on?"

"Shut up," Skutch said bitterly. He was trying to sound more commanding, but fell short. Which was... weird. "I'm not here to fight. Look."

No sooner had he said that than he dropped the _manriki,_ held his hands at his sides, and took four steps back. I could see him sigh. It turned into vapor in the air in front of him, and evaporated high over his head. "I'm just here to talk."

"Fine," said Dib, taking a few solid steps toward Skutch, hands still glowing blue with gathered energy. "Go ahead."

"No," Skutch insisted. "First, let me talk to Zim." He lifted his head, and glared at my brother. "Alone," he added.

"Like hell!"

_"Please,"_ Skutch forced out.

That was when I noticed it. Prior to this visit, Skutch had had, visible even under his unruly bangs, the Irken Elite symbol emblazoned on his forehead, just as all of the others did. Not anymore. And he even swept back his bangs to prove it.

"Come on," I whispered to Zim, grabbing his hand and walking closer to Dib. "Look," I whispered to both of them, then. "He's not Elite anymore, look at that."

"Could be a trick," said my skeptical brother.

Zim shook his head. "He was in trouble last time," he told us. "Plus, I had kind of offered that he could talk to us."

_"WHY?"_ Dib spat.

"Because I think he's got some of the information we need. Look," Zim added, "you trust me. You trust Tenn."

"Neither of you dropped a bomb on us in recent memory," Dib growled. "Or was a partner to that awful Skoodge."

"I can hear you," said Skutch, folding his arms. "And for the record, I hated Skoodge. He was a prick."

"Agreed, but that's still no reason for me to just let you walk in here and think you're not about to attack us," Dib shot back.

"Dib," our father called over. "The computer."

My brother paused. That much was true. Tenn had even told us that, when she was in the Elite, Skutch was more all about weapons and computers than she was; she was more on the jet engine and construction side of things. Plus, as a weapons expert, Skutch could, if we heard him out, possibly do something about _Osdraken._

Shit. Talk about a standstill.

"Dammit," my brother muttered.

"I'll do it," Zim offered. Skutch did not react in any other way but to bow his head again. He almost looked like he'd shivered; he clutched his arms closer to his chest. Why the hell wasn't he wearing a jacket if he could actually feel the air? "Looks like he's recovered in more ways than one from that last attack. I need to have a word with him anyway."

"Hey, Dad," Dib called over, "we have an interrogation room ready?"

"Um..."

"The better ones are still under construction," Charlotte answered.

"Then use my office," Dib instructed. "The rest of us'll stand guard."

"No," Skutch insisted. "I talk to Zim _alone."_

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen," Dib said forcefully. "You'll get what you get."

Skutch winced. Huh.

"Just like that?" Lex fumed, storming up to stand on Dib's other side. "Why is it he can simply waltz in here and have an audience? This is terrible! He was here when—he's one of the reasons—"

"I know," Dib said calmly.

"Why are you actually here?" Lex demanded of Skutch. "Where's the rest of your army?"

"I don't have an army," Skutch mumbled.

"Of course you do! Or, that Tak does, and you're a part of it."

"No," said Skutch, "I'm not." He focused his blue eyes on Zim again, drew in a deep breath, and said again, "I need... to talk... to Zim."

And in the end, there was little we could do to deny that. Zim wanted to talk with Skutch, and vice versa. Here the apparently ex-Invader was, dropped on our doorstep, a warning from Tak stitched into his uniform that she was still coming for Dib, that she hadn't given up. Here was someone we could possibly bargain with, if we played our cards right, to get Dib's Runner computer rigged to an Irken satellite so we could finally get back in touch with Red and be kept abreast of Empire dealings. Here was someone else who might be able to shed more light on the past Zim feared. We couldn't just plain say no.

But there were conditions.

One person would stand guard while Zim and Skutch spoke. I insisted and won.

What I ended up hearing through the door, too, was more than I thought any of us could learn in a single evening, let alone one full day.

Damn. Earth and Irk really were more connected than I thought. So many disjointed things were finally finding the sprockets they needed in order to fit together. Now that Zim was having that session with Skutch, I realized that the next step would be a full discussion with my mother. Really, she couldn't have been all that far behind...

– – –

– – –

**Author's Notes:**

Yay, two chapters today! ^^ This is primarily because I have a super, super busy weekend next weekend (and it's St. Patrick's Day, which is one of my favorite holidays, so…), and I didn't want my buffer chapter to be too short. There's a huge _stack_ of information coming up in the next chapter (30, gah!), so… sorry to leave you on a cliffhanger this week, but next week should all make up for it, I promise! :3

I've been waiting to get to this part for a loooong time. Eeeeee~

Still plenty of things to come in Part 3!

Due to my wonky schedule next week, the next chapter will _hopefully_ post on **Friday, March 16****th****.** However, I don't know if I can fully promise that, so if it isn't there Friday, it will post by **late Sunday, March 18****th****.** ^^;; Sorry to have that odd schedule, but it's a really unpredictable weekend. Either way, there is a huge new chapter coming next weekend, and I'm very excited to share it. :3 It just needs some heavy editing first~~

As always, thank you so, so much for your readership, and these reviews! I honestly cannot say thank you enough for these awesome, awesome reviews, you are fantastic! ^^

Early posts today as I am off to an event tonight! Have a lovely weekend, see you next time with Chapter 30! :3

~Jizena

Lyric credit: "My Bloody Valentine" ~ Good Charlotte

– – –


	30. Family Affairs 1: Hearts and Hands

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Zim's Records_

Well, this was an inexplicably awkward surprise.

I could have predicted that Skutch would return, but I would never have been able to put a finger on the circumstances under which he would do so. He had seemed very gung-ho about siding with Tak, and keeping things moving forward for the Empire, but the person who joined us that day was quite different. It was clear that Skutch was someone who went where he was needed. Any branch of the military—if it could advance him, he'd go.

This seemed like the very first time Skutch had dared to fully exercise free will.

The moment I'd gotten Skutch sitting, pensively on his part, tense and trembling—the moment I leaned back against Dib's desk to begin this unannounced private information session, I was struck with both panic and déjà-vu. Not long ago, I'd been the one sitting, with my old arch-rival at the desk. Now, I was being trusted as an SEC member enough to be using this office to extract Irken information from this visitor. I wondered if I had looked as awful as Skutch... comparing his current state to the one I'd been in.

He was, obviously, in his temp form, but he looked much more human than he had three months prior. There was something meek but yet defiantly adolescent about his rigid slouch, elbows on his spread knees, hands dangling, head bent, layered and carefree red-orange hair hanging over his features like a curtain to shield his expression. Skutch drew in a deep breath, clenched and flexed his fingers a couple times, then finally looked up at me. His blue eyes tested me, though I could not tell what on.

We were caught in an odd staredown for a moment, so I finally gave and asked, "Why are you here? I get that you've got something to tell me, but why just me? Is this a _warning,_ or what? Why do you have that number on your shirt?"

"Too many questions, bro, one at a time," said Skutch, before I could continue. He shook his head quickly once. "Hard enough keepin' other stuff straight right now."

"Okay," I said. "I'm willing to slow down. Let's start with the number."

"Dude, I have no idea what that number is or why it should matter," Skutch groaned. Wasn't this guy an Irken Invader? Why the hell was he acting like a kid who'd just gotten grounded? "I figured it'd be my cell block number or somethin'. If it's somethin' else, man, I can't help ya. Sorry."

"Cell block?" I repeated. "Why—"

"Yeah," he interrupted, being more harsh on himself than on me. He paused a second, then shook his head again. Moving heavily, as if his bones were dense iron, Skutch leaned back in the chair, perfecting his slouch even further. He glared at the armrests, then put them to use, dangling his arms off of the dark red material of the chair that I knew was almost unnecessarily comfortable. His hands hung carelessly to the sides, and he extended his legs somewhat.

If that wasn't easy to read, I didn't know what else could be. Skutch was showing me a side of him I didn't even know he had. The side that could accept defeat. That wasn't something any Invader showed... let alone any civilian Irken. Skutch had submitted, and he knew it, but it was the question of to what that he hadn't yet let me in on. "I shoulda just let you guys capture me last time," he said. "At least that way maybe I'd still have—" He trailed off.

"Have what?" I prompted. I leaned forward somewhat, as if that would help. I was just so—I suppose I could say in awe of Skutch's turnaround. And yet bothered.

"Nothin.'"

"Skutch, why are you _here?"_

"Cuz... _ugh,"_ he groaned, "fuck. I wanna switch sides." He said that through his teeth, but he didn't do so out of reluctance to say the words... instead, he seemed convinced that I wouldn't believe him.

"Okay," I said s non-threateningly as possible. "I'm glad you took that offer."

"Uh-huh."

"Is that all you had to tell me?"

"Nope."

"...Well?"

Skutch took a minute to glance around the room, his eyes darting off of every wall with passing curiosity. His left heel bean tapping nervously against the floor. He really wasn't hiding much. Right down to his guilty conscience.

...Wait. Holy shit. Skutch had a guilty conscience.

Skutch had _a conscience._

And he didn't want to talk about it. "Skutch," I began calmly, "are you siding with us, you know, out of necessity?"

"In normal words?" he scowled.

"Are you an Original," I asked, ignoring how he was starting to try my patience, "and do you, for lack of a better way of saying it, feel human?"

Skutch winced. "I'm Original," he said. "Just like you, bro."

"Okay."

He winced again, then sat up a bit straighter, crossed one leg over the other, and brought his hands toward his lap so that he could glare at them. And he _glared,_ pretty horribly. "The second thing... man, I don't even know what I feel anymore."

After heaving a sigh, Skutch growled in his throat, and then stood. He paced a couple of times, and, just the way I tended to do, ran his gloved hands through his hair, only to wince, yelp, and cringe. That got him to stop pacing, and he doubled over himself at the bookshelf on the wall to my right.

The bookshelves in Dib's office were arranged such that each wall had about four shelves stacking up to the ceiling, and then an almost desk-depth shelf at a little less than waist height over the cabinets underneath. Skutch leaned against the long shelf, his weight entirely on his elbows and forearms, legs spread out almost like a giraffe as he kept his head down. "FUCK," he hollered. "Fuck, _fuck."_

Shit. His hands. I'd bloodied them up something horrible during our last fight, no thanks to the re-forging of _Osdraken,_ and my PAK's insistence on regaining control, and then MiMi had taken him away, branding him a failure at his mission. They probably hadn't healed properly, even if it had been a couple months since that fight.

"Hey," I said, "Skutch, what's, um... what's up?" It was weird. I wanted to make up for what I'd done, and was feeling quite possibly more remorse than I should have for fouling up his hands. He'd been after me on Tak's mission, though—for all intents and purposes, what I'd done was self-defense. But I was still just so bothered. My heart picked up, and I pushed away from Dib's desk in order to take a couple wary steps closer to Skutch. "Listen," I said, to keep the peace, "we could probably use you around here, okay? I mean it. After you tell me whatever it is you need to, I'm pretty sure you'll have a place here."

"Great," he mumbled.

I heaved a sigh, audibly to get his attention. "Skutch, if you're just going to mutter, then Dib _is_ just going to lock you up until you talk. So you aren't here from Tak—"

"No. Fuck Tak." He growled again, then punched a hand into the shelf—cringed because of it—and whirled to face me, standing as tall as he dared go. The look on his face was quite intense. He wasn't kidding that he wanted to switch sides. His eyes were clearer than they had been. They were focused on whatever he wanted to focus on, not what Tak told him to do. _"Fuck—TAK."_

I practically grinned. "Well, it's kind of good to hear you say that," I admitted. "She'd hypnotized you, or something, right?"

"Yeah, some shit about her ability... yeah, she..." Skutch shook his head to jostle up the right thought, "yeah, bro, she hypnotized all of us. She called us all in first, makin' it seem like we were about to do it willingly or somethin'. Actually maybe some of 'em _did,_ I can't—_ugh,_ I can't fuckin' _remember—"_ He grabbed uncomfortably at his hair again. "And I have no fuckin' clue what all she took. I really just shoulda let you guys capture me. _Fuck."_

Now I was getting nervous. "Um... Skutch, what happened?" I asked, trying to sound calm and inviting. I was definitely sympathetic to his situation, if nothing else. "Look, I know what it's like to not have access to some memories, but if you've still got your PAK in you, you can get to them."

"Yeah funny story that isn't funny at all," he said. He dropped his hands, then glared at them. Glaring got him to sigh again.

"Skutch," I began slowly, "did I really mess up your hands?"

The color drained from his face, and his head shot up so that he could look straight at me. But he just looked away again. "I didn't really get a chance to know," he said.

"What's that mean?" When Skutch didn't answer, I prompted, "Let me see your hands."

"You can't," was his answer.

"I deserve to know what I did to them. Let me see your hands," I requested again, more firmly this time.

"You can't."

"Why not?"

"Cuz I don't have any."

_"WHAT?" _I burst.

Skutch cringed, then got in an outburst of his own by shouting, "SHE CUT MY FUCKING HANDS OFF!"

He shivered slightly, then winced and quickly, eyes intently focused, tried to loosen the buckles on each bulky brown glove. They looked a little large, and much like the utility gloves I'd seen the maintenance workers using, and covered even his wrists. When his fidgeting didn't work, Skutch let out a frustrated holler and yanked at the buckles until they finally gave, then tossed both gloves off simultaneously and shoved his hands out in front of him. "There!" he yelled. His face was red with anger, eyes flaring, teeth clenched. "See? She just plain cut 'em right off!"

It was true. Skutch's hands were gone, but they had been replaced. What once was flesh was now metal and wire, intricately woven into the shape of human hands. Though metal plates coated most of the outer layer of this sophisticated robotic design, several exposed computer chips and bolts were still visible in some areas. At the wrist, flesh merged with metal, nerve to wire. His wrists themselves were red and raw, and heavily scarred from what I could only imagine to have been an awful, probably rushed surgery that must have taken place in order for this to have happened. Though Skutch had free movement over his new hands, the fact remained that they were terribly new, and that he did not want to feel much attachment to them at all.

I yelped, I couldn't help it. Skutch glowered at me, shooting me a look worse than any that even Dib had given me during his heyday of trying to stop my Invasion plans, so long ago now. Skutch's leer was awful, primarily in that it was not just scathing in regards to my reaction... but it was pained. Invader Skutch had been violated. "You know what she told me when she did this?" he snarled.

"Wh-what?" I was trying so hard not to let bile rise from my stomach, but the look of his wrists really was awful. Red, scratched, his veins bright blue against his skin closest to the spot where the computerized hands connected.

"She told me I couldn't be a soldier anymore. In more words, but whatever." Skutch shook his head. "She coulda just turned me Irken again, cuz my hands were all fucked up. But she doesn't work that way. So she just fucking cut 'em off. And I'm never, ever goin' back there. She cut 'em off and even that wasn't enough, bro, she was gonna chuck me in prison for not—"

"For not what, not bringing me back?" I guessed.

"Basically, yup."

"What is her problem?" I found myself hollering. Skutch winced back. "Sorry, but..."

"Look. Dude. I'll tell you whatever ya wanna know, or need to, or whatev, but she kinda pried some of that out," Skutch told me. "I'm switching sides, and I'll do what I can and stuff, just... might take me a while."

"What makes you say that?"

Skutch held up his false hands, and when he moved them, I could see the gears at work. They were indeed computers, with their own tiny processors that attached to his nerve endings and to his heart. They were probably blood-powered in some way. I wasn't much one for mechanics, even though I'd been reading up on things a bit lately, but I did want to know more about those hands. Primarily because I was the reason they'd been cut off in the first place.

"She made 'em outta my PAK," Skutch lamented.

I could have sworn my heart stopped. "She—_WHAT?"_

"Yup." Skutch dropped his hands, and his shoulders sagged down with them. They must have added a fair amount of extra weight, being of a much denser material than the rest of his bones. He glared down at them. "She ripped out my PAK and MiMi fucked around with it till she made hands outta the thing." Drawing up just his right hand, he showed me the back. "See, that's the chassis—" he turned his hand over to the palm— "and that's the core."

"I'm so sorry," I blurt out. Before I knew it, I was holding Skutch by the shoulders and repeating, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Skutch, I am so sorry."

"Chill, bro, why're _you_ sorry? She did it."

"No, I did!" I protested. "Skutch, I completely destroyed your hands during that fight—"

"Yo, don't worry about that," he told me, looking unconcerned. "Listen up, Zim, I'd've been fine with bandaged hands, or wrecked ones, or whatever, as long as they still had battle scars. Y'know what I mean? I've got battle scars like crazy, or... or, I did, Irken."

I couldn't even respond anymore, I was in such a state of shock. I drew my hands back and folded my arms over my chest, shuddering at the thought of what it must have been like for Skutch to have had his own hands severed.

He no longer had a sense of touch, not where it counted most, at least. His hands were disproportionate, and his wrists must have hurt something awful. I wondered how similar to the wound on my upper arm Skutch's own wounds were. And furthermore, was his back ripped up? I still had a scar, where my PAK would have been. For Tak to have ripped it right out of him,_ in human form..._ I was surprised Skutch could even walk. Surprised his spinal column was intact. He was both lucky and highly unfortunate.

"I can't—" Skutch let out a heavy sigh, then walked away from me to pick up his gloves. Once they were reclaimed, he moved to the other end of the room to pull them back on. "Y'know where I was before this?" he said. "I was at the top. Tak drained my brain and I didn't even care. Why? Cuz I got to look like this. I got to be taller, I got to be stronger, I didn't fuckin' care. I let her eat my mind, bro. But she never saw me as a soldier.

"Now I can't go back. Like, ever."

"Why?"

"Duh! Cuz I'm physically human!" Skutch outstretched his arms, gesturing to his entire body. "These hands, these fuckin' hands, dude, they can _only look like this!_ They're this size, they can't change. They can't make holograms, they can't do fuckin' anything as far as I know. Just keep me alive. I'm stuck lookin' like this forever, but if I take my _fucking PAK off, I DIE!"_

He let out an aggravated growl and punched a wooden chair by the bookshelf he now stood near. The little piece of furniture cracked and collapsed upon the impact with his metal fist. "Ugh, fuck," he muttered.

"I'm sorry," I said again. "I swear, if I'd've known..."

"Well, you didn't, so shut up!" Skutch barked. "It ain't your fault, bro, so shut up!"

"Okay," I hollered, "why do you keep saying that, Skutch? Where'd you learn your English? Seriously! No one around here says _'bro,'_ so why would you?"

"Jeez, I dunno, maybe cuz you're my brother!"

I whirled to fully face him, and could only stare. It made no sense. Irkens didn't have siblings, as far as I knew. While fully capable of sexual reproduction, none ever went that route anymore. The cloning system was the only thing truly known. The PAKs kept most personalities under control. It was the Originals who were deviant, whose PAKs could not always hide latent abilities left behind in some of the birthing chambers from the old generations.

"Brother?" I repeated. "I can't be your brother. Irkens don't—"

"Well, we're as close to brothers as Irkens get, then," Skutch shrugged. "Every time an Irken is born, the pod gets destroyed. No recycling, nothin', just destroyed. Sometimes one or two just get put back an' the cycle starts over. Takes twenty years for a chamber to charge up, so, there y'go. I was born in the same one as you, twenty years later. They used to call 'em 'data relatives,' Irkens like us. Now if they find out there are any, they kill 'em."

"They," I said slowly. "They, you mean the Control Brains?"

"Yup."

"Oh, holy shit," I groaned, running my hands through my hair. "Okay. Okay. So. I have a brother."

"Basically."

"Whose hands are computers because I cut up the real ones."

"I said that wasn't your fault."

"Well, I have this thing called a conscience!" I shouted. "I haven't been able to let that go as is, I've been feeling bad for that! I guess if we're related, then that makes sense I'd be worried, but—fucking hell, Skutch, why were you attacking me if you knew—"

"When Tak zapped me, I _didn't!"_ he protested.

"Zapped, you mean, hypnotized?"

"Yeah, whatever!"

I studied the young ex-Invader for a moment. Ever since his first arrival, I'd been wary of the way he looked in human form. We shared some physical traits. Eye shape, a little bit in bone structure. There were more than enough differences, but the point was, we did have things in common. Even non-physical traits. All Irkens are stubborn, but show it in different ways. His methods and mine, as Invaders, had been quite alike. Climbing to the top, shoving down any opposition, drowning out things we thought weren't important.

And we'd both found ourselves in more trouble than we needed.

"Zim, here's the whole story," Skutch finally caved. "The whole damn thing. You and me're related. I think that's the only reason I was ever in your Elite, way back when. That, or _Malagritte,_ my weapon. Probably more that than anythin'. Tak was in your Elite, too, so she knew, and she kinda didn't like me cuz she wanted to be your favorite."

"Ugh, she did?" I groaned.

"Yeah, don't ask me why." Skutch shrugged. "Anyway, some of my memory got dug out when MiMi did the PAK converty-thing, and I feel kinda _meh_ from comin' off Tak's hypnosis or whatev, but I know enough. And you an' me have some stuff in common, like being Original and stuff.

"Tak wants you back," he went on. "That was her whole thing. Bring back the Elite Commander, bring back the Elite Commander, that's _all_ she fuckin' talked about. I probably woulda hated it if I'd had my own mind intact, believe me."

"Skutch," I said slowly, "is her whole operation based around bringing m—bringing him back?"

I waited for the Commander to have some input, lodged deep in my mind, but the PAK remained silent. What scared me about the PAK the most was that while it could invade my own thoughts, and take over my mind, memory and body seemingly whenever it wanted to, there was no reciprocation. I couldn't root around in there to find what I wanted. The exchange went only one way. That was the nature of a parasite, though, I had to admit. But the more I learned, from the outside for lack of a better way of thinking about it, the stronger the PAK may have been getting, since all I was doing was confirming all of my lost memories from having been Commander.

Sooner or later, I would learn about my full connection to Miyuki.

I just really did not want that damn PAK to destroy me.

"More or less," Skutch admitted. "She's got some heavy shit on you, Zim. I dunno what all it's about, but she wants her Elite Commander back, and she wants him to take over."

"She can't have him," I said firmly.

"I don't want her to either. Reason number... whatever... for wanting to switch sides."

"Skutch, you made a very, very good decision by coming here," I told him. "Dib is going to be glad you're coming on board. Especially the more you can help us out with these Irken things. Invader Tenn is here, too, you probably know. If you and she both work on the ships and mechanics, we can get back at Tak."

"All I want is a chance to take a swing at her."

I laughed a little, then walked over to Skutch to help him fasten the gloves back into place. "Y'don't have to do that," he mumbled.

"On Earth," I said, tightening the second buckle, "we say _thank you."_

Skutch smirked a bit, then looked over his hands again and sighed. "Gotta get used to these, too," he said. "Man, she cut 'em off, threw these gloves on me, gave me a new shirt, then shoved me onto a prison ship headed for top security. If I hadn't had _Malagritte,_ I'd be there now."

"How did you get here?" I wondered.

Skutch shrugged. "Cut myself loose, offed the pilot of the prison ship and drove myself here."

Okay, yes, very glad he was on our side now. "Wow."

"Did what I had to."

"I guess."

I began to usher him back out of the room at that point, but a thought was tugging at me. "Hey... Skutch?"

"What's up?"

"If you're my brother..."

"Yeah?"

"And we're Originals..."

"Yeah?"

"Do we have the same ability?"

"Oh. Uh, yup, I think so. Just haven't figured mine out," Skutch answered. He shrugged, glanced around the room, then said, "Can't really figure it the way my life's been goin' anyway, but you kinda started gettin' yours a long time ago, as the Commander."

My heart skipped, and I swallowed back a lump in my throat. Red hadn't told me what my ability was. Ira had known, but had said nothing. Miyuki certainly hadn't come forward with that information. "In strict sibling confidence, then," I said, lowering my voice, "can you tell me what it is?"

"What, you mean, you don't know?" Skutch wondered. I shook my head. "Oh. Huh. That can't be good."

"It can't? Why?"

"Well, cuz if the you back then understood it, it's gonna be jammed in with your old memories," said Skutch.

"So it could..." I didn't even want to think about it, let alone say the words. "It could cause a relapse...?"

"Maybe. If I tell ya, bro, just be kinda careful, 'kay?"

I nodded. This was something I needed to know. Something that could potentially help me overcome my Hate, especially if my Original ability was a weapon my past self could use in that PAK's battle against my human mind. I wanted that internal struggle to be over. I couldn't take much longer, being at war with my own chemistry. I was ready to just be human. And be with my girlfriend. And leave all that murder behind me.

"It's the thing that everyone said made you kill Miyuki," Skutch said. "So Tak figured, I think, anyway, that it must've been this wicked destructive thing. And I mean, I guess it can be, like I said, I dunno how it works yet. I mean, it was always kinda obvious with you and Tallest Miyuki. Commander you, I mean."

"What was obvious with me and Tallest Miyuki?" I asked, trying not to sound too forceful.

"Well, that you loved her."

I froze. I froze, and felt like nothing could thaw me.

"Our ability is Love, Zim," Skutch went on. "We were born with it. ...Zim...?"

A blackout.

The worst I'd experienced in a while.

My vision became complete nothingness, first stark white, and then pitch black. And then that distortion of my own voice rang out through the darkness, piercing my skin, oozing like slime through the crevices of my mind, boiling up inside my stomach and filling my veins with lava rather than blood. I was both frozen solid and bursting into flame.

And the Commander spoke.

_Oh, _he said, _and where do we stand today? Nowhere near victory, human. Accept that your dream is an illusion. Let me out._

_ "Never,"_ I fought back. _"No, it can't be this easy. I don't love Miyuki. I love Gaz, and—"_

_ You don't have a choice._

_ "Fuck you."_

_ You don't have a choice. I have already decided._

_ "What you do isn't love," _I continued. _"It's disgusting. It's a bastardization of something that's supposed to be—"_

_ You don't know what love is supposed to be._

_ "I know better than you!"_

_ You know nothing. You are nothing. You are mine. I am you. Miyuki is the rightful Tallest, and she belongs to me._

_ "WHAT DO YOU WANT?"_

_ I want the power she promised me._

_ "No."_

_ I want the freedom I have deserved for so long._

_ "NO."_

_ I want it, and I am going to take it, for that is the way of the world. You gave it an honest try, human. But that isn't good enough. What matters in this world is power, not your ridiculous trust and morality._

_ "Without trust, there's no love. SHUT UP."_

_ Love is nothing but the lust for power, and the gratification of getting it. Miyuki was the personification of power. Miyuki will rule the Empire again. And I will rule the rest._

_ "I'm going to stop you."_

_ You can't._

_ You cannot attain Love, human, if the course of Love has already been decided for you._

_ "You DON'T KNOW—"_

_ Perhaps I don't, to your definition. But I have won, all the same._

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

The return of Skutch and his favorite word. D: That boy swears _so much._ (I get my weekly quota in with him… XD) I love him, though. Even if he did get a raw deal.

I've been excited to get to this part for a while~ Haha, this entire chapter was a conversation, and there are more just full, really heated conversations on the way, but every one of them is going to be revealing…

This is no kidding the start of my favorite part of this _Saga._ ^^; Skutch is here, their relationship is known, and the Commander is back…

How long's he gonna stay…? :3

God, I love villains. And anti-heroes. And villains who switch sides and good guys who… well… ^^

So sorry this went up so late! I had a lot of editing to do on this chapter, and decided that it was best to divide this one and what comes next… :3 I'm super tired right now too so sorry if I'm not making much sense, haha… ^^;

This week's chapter should hopefully be up on time! See you next **Saturday, March 24****th****!**:3

~Jizena

– – –


	31. Family Affairs 2: Dumb Luck

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Zim's Records_

_(Continued)_

The only luck on my side allowed me to snap out of that episode before anyone else could enter the room or be otherwise alerted. Gaz must not have heard, from where she was standing at the door, which was fortunate enough... I must have passed out completely, rather than the PAK gaining control of my body, right down to the vocal chords again.

I blinked to readjust to the light of the room, rather than the lonely, murky darkness I'd fallen into for the past couple of minutes. Waking, flat-backed, on the floor, was not the most promising way to be revived, but I could think of worse outcomes. At least I wasn't alone in the room.

"Did ya just shut down or somethin'?"

Sitting up with a start, I noticed that Skutch had been in a kind of kneeling squat over me. He'd taken his left glove off again, and a humming noise could be heard coming from that PAK-made hand. As much as I tried to take in the expression my unconventional brother was showing, my eyes were drawn to that hand.

Uncomfortably, Skutch looked down as well, and said, "Gotta let it recharge or somethin' before I shove it back in the glove. Might overheat, or, I dunno."

"Recharge?" I wondered. I lifted an eyebrow in confusion and ticked my head up to study him further. Skutch did look concerned, though whether it was for himself or for me I could not tell. "What did you do?"

Skutch held up his hand and glowered down at the whirring gears exposed in his palm. "Kay, so it's like this," he said, testing out his fingers, one at a time. "You passed out, right? Or somethin', bro, you just kinda went down."

"It... happens," I said.

"It's a PAK problem, right?"

My back stung a little, as if the Commander was trying to warn me that, yes, this body could be his to control at any given second. He was only waiting things out to make it all more painful now, I was sure. "It's a pretty bad one," I confirmed for Skutch, "yeah."

"I thought so." When Skutch grinned, I saw a lot of human potential in him. There hadn't really been a moment that I'd been able to speak to him, in his now assumedly permanent 'human' body, for a length of time that didn't involve a lot of shouting or us trying to kill each other. Now that the opportunity had presented itself, I noticed even more that, like me, he did pretty solidly register as a teenager. His eyes were fairly dark, and had clearly seen more than any one person ever should, but we all carried heavy burdens around here. Skutch still had the smirk of a self-assured adolescent, and the vocabulary to match, but all the same, he was still able to tell me things such as his next few words: "I shocked you to wake you up. I figured, if it was a PAK glitch, it just had to get jostled or somethin'."

"Eh?"

"PAKs can re-charge each other," Skutch shrugged. "Or, like, kickstart and stuff. I had no fuckin' idea if I could do any of the complicated stuff with these," he continued, holding up his left hand, "but, like... figured it'd be worth a shot. Plus, if I'd just kinda left ya, pointy-hair guy out there'd be all thinkin' I tried to kill you again or something."

I laughed. "Pointy-hair guy's name is Dib," I said, "and you're kinda right about that. He's not too horrible, though."

"But he's, uh... he's one of the heirs, right?" Skutch asked, ticking his head out the door. "He and that girl?"

My chest tightened. Skutch stood back to pull his left glove back on, and to offer me his right hand to get me standing. I thanked him, then felt a chill run down my spine. God, my arm hurt. Already into winter again, I was becoming more and more positive that the PAK was going to wait for the most inopportune moment to attempt taking over completely.

As much as I no longer wanted to, I had to talk to Miyuki. I hadn't earned a new component of my soul in a while, and the next one to go would be Fear. I had to face down the Commander, however that was going to be feasible. I wondered if it even was.

With Skutch around as kind of a technician, I could hopefully be able to keep blackouts to a minimum, if they were really going to start back up again. Even though Tenn had been around for quite some time, I'd never thought about asking her for that kind of help, primarily because I didn't want to burden anyone with what was going on inside me. Knowing that I had some kind of direct relation to Skutch made it easier to accept his help... that and the fact that he'd come forward to help first, without there being that long moment of explaining why I needed the help at all.

But what Skutch had told me about Miyuki and the me that I'd once been... that wasn't settling very well with me. In love with Miyuki? I wasn't. I couldn't be. No, I had Gaz. I was _dating Gaz._ I loved her, and she supported me. Maybe I still needed Miyuki's help, but I wondered how the hell I was going to confront her, knowing that there was once something of sorts between us—worse, actually, between her and the slowly re-forming memories buried in my PAK and in the sword, _Osdraken,_ that lay dormant in the infirmary.

Plus, there was the issue of GIR to take care of. He hadn't shown any more signs of whatever the hell he'd earlier been showing signs of, but the fact was, he still had some of the Commander's information stored in him, as well.

The past was scattered all around me. Until I found the means to lay it to rest, once and for all, I would never be able to live in the present, or look forward to the future.

But it all had to start, somehow, I was quite sure, with Miyuki. And Gaz.

"Gaz," I corrected Skutch. "Her name's Gaz."

"'Kay. So, they are Miyuki's heirs, yeah?" Skutch guessed.

"Yeah, Skutch, they are," I sighed. "Tak had all that information right."

"Tak's a bitch," Skutch snorted.

"Yes, she is. And you know what, I think that's about all the convincing Dib's going to need. Anything else you needed to talk about with just me?"

"Uh... nothin' right now," said Skutch. "I just had to kinda tell you the brother thing, y'know?"

"Sure, yeah." I grinned, tightened the buckle on Skutch's left glove, and said, "Let's go get you official in the Corporation. What d'you say?"

"I say, uh, you sure you're good, bro?" Skutch asked. "Like, the PAK thing, brain thing, whatever?"

I suppressed a full laugh. "I'll be fine," I assured him. "Don't worry too much about it."

"Sure thing." Skutch took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He stared down for a moment at his gloved hands, turned them over and back, and said, "This is all really fucked up."

"Yeah?"

"Like how Tak got me to attack you and shit for one thing. And me gettin' like this and you bein' affected by your PAK and everything, and me switchin' to be with all you guys. You really think it'll be fine if I join on?"

"You'll be an asset," I said. After a second of hesitation, not being much of one for congratulatory physical contact myself, I set a hand on Skutch's shoulder. "We can use you. And, hey, as long as you're here, you can keep fighting, right?"

Skutch just held up his hands and shot me a scowl.

"You can train," I suggested. "Look, you already shocked my PAK into submission, eh? What's that say?"

"Dumb luck?"

"Then train your dumb luck, Skutch, because I don't think those hands are going to be a burden forever. You can learn how to use them."

"...Against her," he finished. "Zim, I just wanna bring that bitch down."

This time, I did laugh. "Then you're on the right side."

Later into the evening, at a full Board meeting, Dib agreed as well. Skutch was welcomed on as a probationary agent, and assigned to me and Tenn as help with the army. Agent Cthulhu grunted a bit of dissatisfaction about that, saying that the SEC army shouldn't have to be a reform school for Irkens-turned-allies, but even his wife shut him up on the issue. Gaz herself made the point that we needed all the help we could get, and Irken help was beyond valuable.

As I spoke to Gaz on my own, once the meeting had concluded, about the apparent blood relation I shared with Skutch (but not about the blackout pertaining to the Commander's revealed love for Miyuki), I overheard Dib, Lex and Tenn talking with Skutch about his prowess with Irken machinery. He gave them the same truth he'd told me: that a part of his brain had been literally restructured when Tak and MiMi had made new hands of his PAK, thereby ripping out and rehashing his processing core, and that therefore he'd be working a bit slowly.

Dib didn't seem to care, once the full explanation was given. He and Lex were wary around Skutch, due to his former shared position with Invader Skoodge, but the more convincing Skutch was able to honestly do, the better won-over the SEC leader was.

"Can you get us in contact with Tak?" Dib asked Skutch at the end of the evening. "We have a computer all rigged up, from the Spittle Runner she used to use. We need to get in contact with the Empire, but so far we can only receive signals."

Skutch shrugged. "I'll take a look at the thing. Again though..." He tapped an index finger to the side of his head. "Might take me a little while to remember all the functions."

"Take whatever time you need," said Tenn. "We just need the damn thing fixed."

"Can't you do it?" Skutch asked her.

"I'm more about ship functionality than CPUs, you know that."

"Do I?"

"I'm Invader Tenn."

"You _are?"_

"Didn't you know that?" Tenn shot him an odd look, eyebrows cocked and mouth stretched in a half-expressed, near-smile.

_"Yeeeeeaaaah,"_ said Skutch, waving one hand back and forth to indicate, 'sort of,' and giving her an embarrassed grin. "It's just all weird to like, have to re-meet people cuz of these holograms and temp forms and everything."

"Yeah, and speaking of which," said Dib, "we've really got to get that machine up and running. It isn't even Tak we need to find so much as Red."

_"Taaaaalllllest _Red," Tenn mocked, rolling her eyes as she impersonated the way the Tallest stood, straight-backed, shoulders squared, arms folded.

Gaz winced. "And Ira," she whispered.

The ribbon looked nice in her hair, but she let out a sad sigh every time she tied or removed it. I tried to talk or kiss her worry away, but there was no undoing what had been done. Ira had been taken away, and a part of her just could not recover. She had also been growing a bit more depressed, lately, I could tell, about her mother's prolonged absence.

Especially with her father back.

Professor Membrane was the one to usher my brother—and, man, did that take some getting used to, as far as just plain saying it—out of the room to have a look at the Irken computer, but he passed congratulatory comments to his kids on their handle of the situation prior to leaving for the hall. Glancing from him, to Dib, and then finally back to Gaz...

Shit. All I knew was that, at one point in my sordid history, I had been in love with Miyuki. With the once-Tallest, with the only Irken of a rank higher than the one I had then held. With the one who had disappeared, the one I'd allegedly murdered—who had somehow come to Earth, lived as a human, fallen in love with the man then known as Charles Mansfield. With the mother of the girl I loved now.

I really, _really_ did not want to think about it that way.

But I knew, sooner or later, she'd show herself again. I knew, sooner or later, Gaz would have to find out about my latest blackout.

We had Skutch on our side, now, to help fill in gaps from the past and work on getting us back in contact with the Tallest. Tenn and I had a well-trained army. Miyuki was the logical final piece. But based on how easily my PAK—how the Commander had reacted simply to the news of what my Original ability was... I didn't want to think about what might occur the day I met her again.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Baaahhhh this isn't much of a chapter, but I had to resolve last week's… and also leave last week's as a cliffhanger. XD But there's another chapter this week, too, so I'll let Dib continue and comment more there… :3

~Jizena~

– – –


	32. Family Affairs 3: Reconnection

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

**Reminder** that there were two chapters posted this week! ^^ Also, sorry for any confusion from last Sunday's post! This arc begins on Chapter 30, just wanted to alert you~~ :D

~Jizena~

– – –

_Dib's Records_

At least Skutch _admitted _he was a pain in the ass. If he hadn't realized it, I could very easily have gotten annoyed with him pretty quickly. All in all, though, he wasn't all that bad a person to have around. For the most part, he was very eager to work, to prove himself, and to advance. He spoke of Tak without fondness, which was good, and admitted that her Elite system was corrupt, that the majority of her soldiers had been brainwashed into helping her.

And that she still had the machine she'd used to turn Zim human in the first place.

It had been powered, Skutch told us, with extra juice from the Cabochon, but now ran on its own. None of the Elite knew where it was. Only Tak and MiMi had access to that information. Skutch was convinced, too, that wherever it was, was wherever Tak had chosen to hide out now, with her army, waiting for her final strike.

We had to move that information along to Red, and fast, but it did take Skutch some time to configure the computer. Into the new year, actually, by the time all of the pieces were in place. In the meantime, to keep himself going, he helped tinker with the Spittle Runner, which got on Tenn's nerves a little (and Lex and I did wonder if those two had any kind of connection other than just old Elite partners), but which all of us were grateful for.

My main focus was still on preparing the SEC to go into intergalactic battle against Tak's Elite. That, and, of course, to—huge sigh—honor my mother's wishes to destroy the Control Brains and bring autonomy back to the Irken populus. Talking that over with Gaz was never an easy discussion.

_"All_ of them?" she asked me one afternoon, when the snowdrifts were too deep for us to want to continue to work. "Do we even know how many there _are?"_

"Be a hell of a lot easier if Miyuki could just show up and tell us," I grumbled.

"Yeah, she used to be really good at that," added Zim.

There were six of us in the common room: Lex, reading over a schematics sheet that Tenn had managed to print from the computer Skutch was almost finished fixing up, as a test run; Tenn, translating the Irken for Lex, both seated on the floor by the large armchair in which I was seated with a large notepad; Zim and Gaz, hands clasped, on the sofa, where Gaz had a laptop set up to take notes; and Skutch, with Red's old laptop opened in front of him, sitting cross-legged on the floor to complete the horseshoe, frowning at things that didn't seem to add up in terms of the final computer components needed to get our satellite connection working.

"Well, either way," I said, "it's all got something to do with this damn Mirror."

I was sketching the Mirror to the best of my memory, currently. I'm not an artist, I never have been, never will be, fail even stick figures, blah, blah, blah, but I figured if it was in my head I could figure something out about it, and Gaz could detail it later.

"Yeah, so, like," Skutch began, still frowning over the computer, but this time because his bulky gloves couldn't type very well on the keyboard without tripping a couple other keys beyond the desired one, "how many Talismans have you guys seen?"

"Possibly three," Zim admitted. "If _Osdraken_ is."

"Oh, it is," said Skutch. "You're right to keep it locked up, though. Ugh."

"What can it do?" I wondered.

"Dude, you don't want to know."

"Yes, I kinda do," I said, "if it could sort of, you know, make or break this attack plan I'm trying to work out."

"It kills, man, that's all it does," Skutch shot back in his usual snarky way. He was taking some getting used to, yes, but damn if he wasn't helpful. "Just kills. A lot."

"Swords are known to do that," Lex said flatly. "What a marvelous secret Talisman."

"Normal swords, maybe," Skutch shrugged. _"Osdraken's_ got the ability to kill a bunch of people at once."

"How?" Zim demanded.

"Only the Commander ever knew."

"Can we talk about something else?" Gaz asked.

"Agreed," said Lex. "All right, we know about that weapon, we know about the Cabochon and that it's now been destroyed, but what about this Mirror?"

"Miyuki wouldn't let me see it," Zim said. "Or, I mean, she wouldn't let me look into it."

"I _have_ seen it," I said without bragging, "and I have looked into it, and I've still got no idea what it's supposed to do."

"All I know," said Tenn, "is the Talismans are all sorta supposed to be these... how would you put it, Skutch, locks?"

"All yours, sweetheart, I'm still tryin' to figure out this damn laptop and I can only think about one thing at a time."

Tenn rolled her eyes. Skutch was proving to be _quite_ the young teenager indeed, particularly with his apparently uncontrollable habit of nicknaming everyone, which was sometimes taken the wrong way by the women of the Corporation, until they realized he honestly did not think it sounded wrong. "Sweetheart me one more time, you're dead," Tenn warned him all the same.

"Whatever you say, dude."

_"Anyway,"_ Tenn said through her teeth before returning to a normal tone, "is that, yeah, the Talismans are like locks on this... kind of barrier for the Control Brains. I don't know much more."

"Did Red achieve anything by breaking one?" I wondered.

"Possibly, but that's honestly not a question for someone of Invader status who willingly kicked herself outta the Empire," Tenn told me.

Skutch raised a hand. "Or somebody twice fucked over," he added.

"Basically, they're all Miyuki questions," Gaz groaned, leaning forward onto her knees.

"Wait." The thought came to me in a passing instant. "Wait, wait, wait, _wait."_ I stood, set the notepad down onto the chair behind me, and started rambling. Sometimes, honestly, that's the only way I can think straight. "Miyuki knows about the Mirror. I've seen the Mirror. Which means she's fine with showing it to people."

"When convenient," Lex pointed out.

"Right. So wouldn't you think that a convenient time for her to bring it out would be, oh, to let her boyfriend know she's not human?"

"Dib, what're you saying?" Gaz wondered.

"I'm saying, Dad might know something we don't."

"He would've told us."

"Unless he forgot. I haven't asked him, have you?" My sister shook her head.

Okay, so file that under next plan of action. I left the others to finalize the linking of our computer system to the Irken satellites, and sought out my father. As shaky as our relationship had been when I was younger, he was one of the few people who could really keep me sane now. It had been a while since I'd asked for his advice, and though I wasn't sure exactly how much he knew of the Irkens, anything he could say would certainly help.

He was always easily found in Professor Haynsworth's office (which previously had been his anyway), but currently he was going through all the medical texts in the private library that was my own office, which I'd given him full access to as well. He was absolutely determined to help Victor, who still showed absolutely no signs of coming out of his unconscious state. We really were lucky that he hadn't died, but none of us knew how long he could hold on.

"Come on," he was muttering, "there must be something..."

"Um... hey, Dad," I greeted, quietly enough so I wouldn't startle him.

Dad looked up from the book he was flipping through, seeming pretty tired. He wasn't wearing his lab coat that day, which was a little strange, since usually it seemed to give him not only a fully authoritative presence, but also served a little as security. Not wearing that was like letting a shield down. "Oh," he said, smiling a little, "good morning. Is it morning? I lost track."

I laughed. "It's mid-afternoon," I corrected, walking further into the office. Dad had set a few books aside, in two piles, probably those that could potentially help, and those that were of no help at all. "Do you... do you have a minute?" I asked, running a hand across Nacea's butterfly charm, which I kept at all times on my desk. It was right next to the large crack in the desk that I'd been too lazy to fix or notice most of the time; Zim had caused that the night I'd told him that Gaz and I were half Irken. He'd been handling the news surprisingly well.

I no longer hated Zim, since the reasons had been lost to time, but something told me I still had reason to be wary of him. That all seemed a long time ago, now... my long days of trying effortlessly to expose Invader Zim to the world and simply get my studies noticed. I'd come a long way since then, and so had he. Our rivalry was nothing anymore, and somehow I missed that. But I had other things to worry about now; I had a reputation to uphold, two sides of the family to please, a corporation to run and of course there was Lex, to whom I devoted more of my time than anything or anyone else.

I was slightly afraid, however, that Zim could turn on us at any moment, and that his past was so much darker than anything I'd ever read or heard of. My mind turned to the Stevenson novella I'd always loved, wondering if his dilemma was anything like the one described in that book. I knew he was trying hard to be more than what his past told him he could be, but the possibility still remained. I'd seen that sword. I was more or less aware of what it could do.

It could kill, Skutch said.

Right. But more than that, it could _destroy._ Destroy minds, destroy morale, destroy notions of conscience and compassion. It could kill Zim. The human, anyway. That was why I kept it locked up. Zim was too valuable an ally to lose. Not in death; in mere death, he'd go out a hero. No, if we lost Zim, we'd lose him to the Empire. The old Empire; my mother's Empire. We'd lose him to the Elite he'd once led, to the revival of the Elite Commander from those times.

He'd told me he was concerned about GIR as well. I hadn't taken much stock in that.

But if Tak's own former Commander, Zim's own brother (however the hell that worked, I was sure I'd find out more about Irken reproduction soon enough, ugh), had expressed concerns about Zim's PAK, weapon and past... yeah, maybe I should have thought a little more about that...

"I suppose I do," Dad said, snapping me back into the present as he laid down the book he'd been holding with a sigh, setting it onto the larger pile of books he'd compiled. Ah, so that was the pile of books that helped very little or not at all. He looked over at me again, and his eyes softened. "Sorry... something troubling you?" he asked.

"I mean... somehow _everything_ is troubling me," I admitted. "Dad... what, if anything, do you know about Irken society?"

"Society? Hmm... not much, I'm afraid," he admitted. "Really, your mother told me very little; I only know how the Tallest system works, and different classes and such. And a bit about Zim, and Irken Originals. And of course the mechanics. Their sophisticated lasers, computers, hover technology... that kind of thing."

"Nothing about Control Brains, huh? Or, like, the actual Prophecy thing?"

"Not really, no." Dad stepped over and leaned against the other side of my desk. "Nervous about it all, aren't you?" he asked.

I nodded. "It's getting to that point where I'm actually scared," I admitted.

"Well, Dib, I'm sure everything will turn out all right," Dad said reassuringly. "I can't do much to guide you once you've gone off to fight, but if there's anything I can do now, just let me know."

I let out a light sigh. "Thanks, Dad," I said. After a mildly awkward pause, I added, "Hey, um... listen, there's something else that's kinda been bothering me."

"And?"

"Well, don't get angry, but... what... why'd you marry Miyuki?" I asked. Her attitude and her complete lack of dependability irritated me, and for a while I really had been wondering just what my father had ever seen in her. They were both such dynamic people, it would seem, from what I knew of both of them, that they'd never really agree or even get along, let alone fall in love. Dad was a little taken aback with the question, as I assumed he would be, but I went on anyway. "It's just that I don't see what could possibly have drawn you to her, or the other way around. Why did you... or, do you, if you still do... love her?"

Dad thought for a moment, then said quietly, "Of course I still love her. And I don't regret marrying her at all. Dib, have a seat."

When he sat in one of the chairs on the other side of the desk, I walked around and situated myself in the other, since I knew he'd probably be speaking a little quietly still, as always seems to be the way when someone explains something of that sort.

"Dib..." Dad began; I could easily see him working out just what he wanted to say, by the expression on his face, "your mother is... well, I admit she's always been a little... out there, in her ways, but that was just the sort of thing that drew me to her in the first place." He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. "God, she was beautiful," he continued sadly. "I almost miss those times we had alone, before she told me what she was. But even then, I knew I wanted to marry her."

"Why?" I wondered.

Dad looked back at me, and replied, "It's so hard to describe the exact things that draw you to the one person you wish to spend your life with. How would you describe Lex?"

"Well, she's..." I paused, realizing I couldn't think of any words that could even possibly describe how incredible she was. "I mean, aside from being smart, and a great archer, and a great person to talk to, and, uh... just... just kinda my anchor and stuff, she's..."

Dad laughed. "So you see?" he said.

"Well..."

"Dib, your mother, Miyuki, was one of the kindest girls I'd ever met," Dad told me. "She had some slightly erratic ways, but that just made her so likable. She shared my passion for the paranormal, and honestly she was the only woman I'd ever met who really made me want children." I felt a sting in my chest, and Dad continued. "It's so awful she had to leave like that. She was a wonderful mother to you both."

_Too bad that's all in the past, _I thought, thankful after having the thought that I hadn't said it out loud. I talked to my father a while longer... Miyuki seemed like a completely different person, the way he was describing her: always full of energy and life, always coming up with new ideas for the Network, being a perfect companion. And apparently she'd been more proud of me and Gaz than words could express. I had no idea what to think anymore.

"Dad, did she ever tell you much about the Mirror?" I ventured.

"Ah." Dad fell into deep contemplation, his eyes watching his own past play out, somewhere beyond where I sat. "That old thing."

My chest tightened and my breath slowed. "Dad, what do you know about it?"

"I accidentally saw it once, in her first student apartment, back in Boston..." Dad recalled. "She told me she'd found it at an antique store back in Finland, but even then I knew that was a lie. I know my mythology, and those symbols were not old Norse." Yes... yes, there was Irken writing around the border. "Plus, it looked more French revival than anything, not that it couldn't have traveled. But it traveled much farther than one country to another, and I knew it."

"Miyuki said it reflects, like... what you're supposed to be or something. It _is_ tied to the Prophecy, Dad, didn't she tell you that?" I wondered. My father shook his head. "Did you ever look into it?"

"Briefly. I saw only myself. She hardly told me anything about it."

"Or the other Talismans," I guessed.

"Your mother was very secretive."

"Yeah, she still is!" I erupted. "And I'm pretty damn sure she's watching us, and I can't friggin' believe she hasn't come back! I mean, like... _you_ came back! Goddammit! Why doesn't she?"

"I'm sure she has her reasons," my father sighed.

"Yeah, well, her reasons are stupid," I muttered, tossing my hands out in front of me to show that I was giving up on that conversation.

Dad suggested that we leave things there for the day, and I agreed, not wanting to become too irate over my unconventional mother's questionable methods, morals, and maternal skills.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was leaps and bounds more eventful, as Skutch and Tenn made a successful transmission to the _Massive_. Tenn backed out of frame so as not to appear to have any continued interest in being in the Tallest's favor, but Skutch boldly made the full call, prepared to take on any criticisms of his loyalty. Which I kind of respected him for, in an odd way. For someone I wanted to strangle a few months ago, he was really proving himself valuable.

Charlotte, my father, and even GIR added to the few of us who had been gathered earlier in the day, and while Gaz clung to her boyfriend tightly out of her nerves for the probability of speaking to Ira again (albeit in a much different way), Zim seemed to be holding onto her with a bit of hesitation on having GIR around to witness the satellite communication in effect. The little blue-eyed robot was preoccupied with watching people's feet, though, squinting at Tenn's and copying her stance, then looking at Lex's to copy hers. I honestly had no idea what the hell GIR could be hiding. But if Zim was worried, we probably had a little bit of reason to be worried. I just hadn't seen anything yet.

The computer control room had not seen this much action lately, what with us restructuring the Spittle Runner and keeping the army up to speed, but it felt good to be back in there... and making our own call, nonetheless. Sure enough, once Skutch fired up the communicator, the large wall screen clicked on and asked for a password.

Skutch entered _80891._

"You _do_ know what it means!" I accused him.

He shook his head. "No way," Skutch refuted. "Man, this thing just needed a current code, and I was thinking, like, based on what you guys've been sayin' about Tak's obsession with that number, it's probably her code and she probably hacks in all the time, or she's still registered or somethin'. No clue what it means still, sorry."

"Fine," I relented. "Good work, though. Keep it up."

"Thanks," Skutch grinned. "And we're live with the _Massive_ in three... two..."

I had seen the control deck before.

A few times. But never, it seemed, had I anticipated seeing that large, circular room quite like I did that day.

The screen flickered with snow until the control room came into full focus.

"Who's the genius, y'all?" Skutch congratulated himself, jabbing his thumbs inward toward himself. _"This_ guy. Aw, fuck yeah."

"Don't ruin it," I warned him.

Skutch waved off my comment the way a kid in trouble would disregard his parents' warnings, complete with a slight snort of air out his nose, then saluted the engineer at the control board. "What's goin' on, motherfucker?" he greeted the wide-eyed Irken. "Weren't expectin' a call from Earth, were ya?"

"And whose report is it we are fielding?" asked the engineer, in a deep, methodical tone.

"Tell 'em it's Invader Skutch. And company. Corporation."

"The Tallest are unavailable to take calls, currently."

_"Is,"_ I heard Gaz mutter under her breath. "There's only one."

"Let me get in there," I requested.

Skutch shook his head. "I got this," he said, glancing briefly back at me. "Listen up," he said to the engineer. "You know who I work for, right?"

"You're... you're among the Rogue Elite," said the engineer. "Tallest Red has issued a warning about the Rogue Elite being branded terrorists and threats to the Empire so—"

"Yeah, okay, sweet, so tell that fuckin' Tallest I'm on Earth and I've got me some fuckin' hostages, all right?"

I opened my mouth to shout at him, but Lex quickly slapped her hands over it and shook her head. Getting onto her toes, she whispered into my ear, "It's stupid, but it's brilliant. Don't you see what he's doing?"

Oh. Oh, right. Red didn't know Skutch was on our side. Maybe that self-righteous Tallest wouldn't respond to a _call us back because we're pissed at your lack of communication and your egotism,_ but he'd respond to a threat. Red only really responded to threats, and he had enough of a relationship with the Corporation, or so I hoped, to want to keep it alive in order for Tak to fall. Red was only really interested in withholding his own position, which I had promised he could keep once Gaz and I got the Control Brain... thing out of the way and dealt with. Besides, his awkward possessiveness of Ira had probably also contributed to his failure to contact us lately. Had Gaz or I said a thing, no way in hell would Red respond.

God damn, I was so glad Skutch was on our side now. He was annoying and overwhelmingly adolescent most of the time, sure... but deep down, that guy was a soldier who really did know a thing or two about both physical and psychological warfare. As an ex-recruit of Tak's, of course he'd know what to do to rustle up the Tallest.

"He's got... lemmie think... three Earth days to respond, 'kay?" Skutch continued with the engineer. "Otherwise, he's lost an ally, and fuck all to his plans."

"How long is three Earth days?" the engineer panicked.

"Not my problem. Bye!"

With that, he shut the transmission off.

Tenn punched him.

"OW! What the fuck?" Skutch winced.

_"Hostages?"_ Tenn reprimanded him.

"No, I'm kind of okay with it," I admitted.

"What've you done with my brother?" Gaz snorted sardonically.

I just shook my head. "We've got to play this as best we can," I said. "Skutch, that was fast thinking. Thank you."

Zim walked over to administer a slight noogie to his brother's unruly red-orange hair, saying, "Couldn't've asked for a better brother, Skutch. Thanks."

"I, uh... do what I can," said the young ex-Invader.

"This is good news," I went on. "Guys, with this, Red's sure to contact us soon enough. And then we can start really making a plan to..."

"...To go to the _Massive?"_ Gaz finished. I nodded. "Let's just hope Mom friggin' decides to say something by then."

Shit. Right. But, then again, if Miyuki was looking on, which I was almost positive she was at these pivotal moments, chances were, she'd come around within the next three days, before Red's time to respond was up.

Before leaving the control room that evening, I triple-checked with Skutch about that damn number, and he confirmed again that he knew nothing. Neither did Tenn. So I went out on a limb and asked GIR. "Do you have _any idea,_ GIR," I asked, kneeling to the robot's level and forcing him to look at me, "what Tak's use of that number could possibly mean?"

"Oh," he said, dancing the Charleston, jazz hands and all, "that's when it wakes up."

I choked on my breath for a couple seconds, then coughed it out and gasped, "What? When what wakes up?"

"All of it."

"All of what?"

"WATCH MY GRAND FINALE!" GIR screamed. He spun in a twirl, applauded himself, and ran from the room.

It wasn't an act. GIR really was that stupid. But I did have reason, now, to believe Zim's wariness around him.

_When it wakes up._

PAKs? Zim's? Mine? Gaz's? Gaz hadn't had the complication yet, but she had just as much of Miyuki's passed DNA as I did. Something latent, that had to be the answer. _Osdraken?_ Something worse?

What the hell could possibly be worse?

I didn't want to know... even though, at the same time, I was sure that, whatever 'it' was that was going to wake had something to do with the success or failure that would meet me and my sister at the inevitable threshold of that damn Prophecy.

Much later on into the night, my girlfriend and I found ourselves—what else—discussing the importance of the Talismans again, and, almost more importantly, the inevitable takeoff to get to the _Massive. _I wanted a distraction, though. Pretty damn badly. I had no idea how long we'd even still have to enjoy normal nights like this.

"We just can't leave until we know a little bit more about that damn Mirror," I muttered. Lex was sitting at the head of my bed, brushing her hair while leaning back against the pillows she'd fluffed up to a desired height, while I sat at her feet, obsessively trying to keep sketching Miyuki's Mirror to the best of my memory. My bed hadn't been made in a damn long time, the two of us were so busy with other things. Actually, _our_ bed was more accurate; she hadn't slept in her assigned room since her father was attacked.

"Your father said he saw it?" Lex recalled, from what I'd already told her.

"Yeah. Sorry, but did your dad ever say anything about it?"

Lex shook her head. "Daddy knew little about what powers Miyuki had exactly. He did know about her being Tallest, and about you and your sister sharing that destiny."

"Destiny, huh?" I grinned. "I haven't thought about using that word yet."

"No? I thought with the word Prophecy, the word destiny couldn't be far behind," said my girlfriend.

"What if... what if it _reflects_ destiny?" I wondered. "I mean, it shows what you really are. Is that, like... how you act, or what you're meant to _do?"_

"Either way, it can't be all bad," Lex offered.

"As long as it's in her hands," I realized. "It'd suck if Tak got a hold of it."

"Good Lord, it would suck if Tak got her hands on anything."

"That's true."

Lex laughed somewhat, and nudged my leg with her foot. "That's quite an interesting trick, that Mirror," she mused, brushing out a tangle carefully so as not to tousle up split ends. Her gorgeous brown hair had gotten quite long during the course of her stay, and though I'd loved it short, it still looked positively beautiful. "You don't hear of things like that every day."

_How do you describe the person you love?_

I smiled and set the book down on the ground. We'd talked long enough. Time for the distraction. I shifted slowly, and crawled over the sheets, situating myself so that I was positioned over her. "Want to see another interesting trick?" I said, grinning.

Lex burst out laughing, then hit me a little on the shoulder with her brush. "You're so lame," she laughed. "Did you really just say that? God, I love you."

"Mmhmm," I said, taking her brush from her and setting it on the bedside table as I leaned in to kiss her. My heart was pounding.

When I pulled back, Lex guided me down a little, brushing her hands through my hair once, then sliding off my glasses and setting them aside. "We're not going to get much sleep tonight, are we, love?" she said quietly, touching her left hand to the tattooed area just below my ribcage, then slowly working that hand down a bit.

"Nope," I replied, sending a quick burst of energy in the direction of the door, with enough force to push in the lock.

– – –

The following morning, I started to put a little more stock into Lex's use of the word _destiny._ Maybe even the word _fate._

We lay there alone for a while, in bed, my girlfriend and I. She was pressed up close to me, warm and well-rested, draped in one of my shirts and a clean set of underwear, which she'd slid on after an eventful night for the both of us. Having had to cave to the only need that would require me to leave the room—somewhere around two in the morning—I'd slept through the rest of the night in boxers and flannel pants. I kissed the sleep from her eyes, and checked in, as I usually did in the morning. The usual response: she had slept well, but her fears for her father's safety perpetuated.

And then, a knock.

"Dib?" my sister called in. "Lex? You guys in there? And decent?"

Gently squeezing Lex's shoulders, I gave her a small kiss, then sat up in bed. Lex followed suit, brushed back the shorter part of my hair, then crossed to the closet to claim her bathrobe before taking a seat beside me again on the side of the bed. "Come on in," I said to Gaz.

She opened the door, looking as though she didn't want to be interrupting, but didn't have much of a choice. "You, um... you're not going to believe this," she said in a detached tone. She was already dressed for the day in a black dress and purple wool tights, but looked exhausted. A kind of exhausted I knew almost too well.

A lump caught in my throat, and all I could do was shake my head.

"Y-yeah," Gaz got out. "Mom's... Mom's here."

Well, go fucking figure. What wonderful timing. Then again, I wasn't surprised. Tallest Red had been given a time frame in which to respond to Skutch's false threat, so naturally Miyuki had to one-up him and come spout more cryptic nonsense at us. And yes, I was convinced that she _was_ going to spout cryptic nonsense, rather than actually be helpful.

"Where?" I wondered.

"Dad's office."

"Where's Dad?"

"I honestly don't know. I've been looking for him but I can't find him. I told Zim to go look. And Tenn and Skutch are keeping an eye out. And I have no idea where Ms. Baudelaire is. Dib, would you just get up already? I don't want to talk to her alone."

"What'd she say so far?"

"Nothing really," Gaz grumbled. "The office door was open, I walked by, and she's in there."

"Sure."

I rubbed a hand against Lex's back in a slight apology for having to cut our morning short, then rose to get dressed, while Gaz looked out into the hallway, probably not trying to think about the reasons why Lex and I were probably not, now that I thought of it, the pinnacle of 'decent.' I was pretty sure Gaz and Zim hadn't gone as far as Lex and I had, nor did I know if either of them wanted to, but I left it alone. (Honestly, though, I was beyond convinced that Zim probably knew absolutely nothing about sex. Which I was kind of glad about. But it was still something I didn't want on my mind ever at all.) A minute later, I'd successfully hauled on a pair of dark jeans, a light blue shirt, and my trench coat. I stuffed my feet into thick sneakers in case Miyuki would haul us outside—or, you know, to another dimension or something because that's absolutely a normal mom thing to do—and called that good, then nodded to Gaz before saying a quick, "See you later," to my girlfriend.

"Good luck," Lex said to me, pulling me down for a kiss before I could go. "Don't let her get under your skin, love."

"Not planning on it, hon. Thanks."

Gaz let me quickly out of the room and down into Dad's office, where Miyuki was indeed waiting. She stood by the first bookcase on the left, skimming through a large volume bound in red leather. Her blue robe was draped over her as it had been during her last visit, when Zim had addressed her as 'the Mandylion,' but the hood was down, revealing her face. A thin black scarf encircled her neck... at closer look, a veil. The way she shrouded her eyes underneath the hood. But now, her full head was exposed, lilac hair flying freely as it had when I'd first met her.

"So, hi," I said, making my words more sharp than friendly. "Nice of you to finally show up again."

"You've seen the third one," was all she spoke in reply.

"Oh, we've been _great,"_ I answered sardonically. "Thanks so much for asking. I'm so glad we're such a close family."

"Dib," Gaz warned.

"By the way," I added, "thanks for warning me that there was a parasite kinda living inside me and that an Irken PAK could totally just take over my functions at any given second."

"You need to train it," said Miyuki.

"Oh, right, _right,"_ I mocked her back.

"Dib!" Gaz tried again.

"Yeah, I hadn't even thought of that," I kept going. "Look, Miyuki, we've both got pretty good control over these abilities and stuff right now, we're making Irken allies, and we've made satellite contact with the Empire. We really, really would appreciate it if you could stick around for the _now what_ segment of whatever the hell it is you're putting us through."

_"Putting you through_ indeed!" Miyuki scoffed, whirling to face us. Gaz and I held our ground.

"Mom," Gaz began, "I don't even know you. I... yeah, I'm glad I've been training with Dib, but you didn't even check in once."

"Aren't you just a _little bit concerned,"_ I added, "for, you know, us, the Corporation, the Empire? Maybe even Zim? Gaz and I get that we're half Irken, Miyuki, we _get it, already._ It's time you told us what these damn Talismans are for and how to recognize Control Brains and..."

"I am only bound to the path that—"

"Miyuki, shut up!" I shouted. "Do you hear yourself? Do you, like... Miyuki, are you comprehending the fact that Gaz and I are _lost,_ right now? We don't know what move to make. You can't just assume we know what to do!"

"Listen to me—"

"No," I said firmly, _"you_ listen to _me._ I'm tired of you being so unreliable. I'm tired of you telling us we have to do things and then just leaving us to discover what it is we're supposed to do. If this is all your grand design or whatever you want to call it, don't you think you could at _least_ give us some pointers?"

"Perhaps my ways are not the best," Miyuki snapped, "but if you find yourselves ready, then I am more than prepared to accurately alert you to the political workings of—"

"Miyuki..?"

My sister gasped. My heart stalled.

Miyuki let out a scream of panic, turned away, and threw her hood over her head.

The doorway had been left open, uncared for. In the grand hall beyond, light streamed in from the large windows that lined the walls just before they met the ceiling, casting a warm yellow light against the marble floor. Against the marble floor, a shadow quivered. The person casting the shadow held the door frame in order to stay standing, such was his shock. His lab coat was open and the neck was down, as I was growing more and more accustomed to, allowing me to see every crease of my father's face.

His light brown eyes widened behind his glasses, and he looked to be at a loss for words.

His mouth moved without sound for a moment, and then he shook his head once before finally uttering her name again.

"Miyuki," he repeated slowly, "is that you?"

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Aaaaaaand here we go. :3 Hooraaaaay… this part just gets more and more fun.

Asdfjl; I will never not love writing Skutch. After all of this Tak and Miyuki being cryptic stuff, he's a breath of fresh air to write. XD And it shouldn't be long till we hear from the Commander again… maybe… ^^

And ohhhh yay now comes the fun of the full Miyuki (and Charles, and Dib, and Gaz… and some Zim) stuff that's been meaning to come out for quite some time. Now we're into the thick of the 'Family Affairs' arc, which is the penultimate arc before the Part 3 Finale, hurrah! I do want to make the alert now, though, that my summer is looking quite packed, so I may need to take a longer hiatus between Parts 3 and 4 than the usual two weeks, in the interest of building a solid buffer (since I'm much more into the _fully-gut-and-rewrite_ stage now more than just simple editing) so that chapters can go up smoothly, rather than keep taking breaks in between, but we shall see! ^^

Also! Next week will be more or less the **one-year anniversary**of my first posting _TWFF_ online! Which… feels pretty awesome~ ^^ So thank you soooososo much for reading, and sticking with this story from the beginning! Aaah! I'll try to have something extra to attach to next week's update, which should be up by **Saturday, March 31****st****!** (There is a probability it may need to go up Sunday, April 1st, but I'll be sure to post in my profile if that happens.) :3

Thanks again so much for reading~! See you soon.

~Jizena~

– – –


	33. Family Affairs 4: A Host of Whys

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Gaz's Records_

_ Family_ is such a strange word.

I mean, _love_ is, too, but I'm pretty sure my abhorrently weak grasp of all concepts pertaining to the latter had everything to do with my childhood lack of understanding the meaning of the former. Parent-teacher nights were kind of both embarrassing and insulting for me as a kid, since _a)_ Dad was never there in person, and _b)_ he probably didn't even care how Dib and I were doing in school at the time, but primarily _c)_ no matter how many times we went, all through elementary school, my homeroom teacher would always inevitably ask me, _"Where's your mom today, Gaz?"_

I used to wonder what things would have been like with Mom around. I got to idolize her, or blame her, or hate her, or just pretend that she would have listened to my dumb, shitty kid problems, rather than me just shutting it all in. Some days, I pretended that she wouldn't have embarrassed me, like Dad did. I'd pretend that she was on my side, that she'd go on rainy walks with me so I wouldn't have to listen to Dib talk about yetis or what the hell ever. Or just, simply, that things would be different.

Everyone gets embarrassed by their parents. Gonna guess, though, that it's not—for that proverbial 'everyone'—because they _hide_ from each other to the masked, folly-ridden extent that mine did.

_Honestly._

For the first time in, what, nearly a dozen years, my entire nuclear family was standing in the same room. All within ten feet of each other. It was absurd. Impossible. Ludicrous. Unfathomable.

The words all seemed to work for each of the four of us, which was probably what prompted the two, eternal minutes that passed until anyone spoke again. The air felt rigid and stale; the light in the room seemed suddenly dimmer. My father had not moved away from the doorway. His hands clutched the doorframe, his body was a barricade. I saw fear in his eyes.

Ever since I'd started being able to see Dad's face again, I'd been noticing how easy he was to read. No wonder he'd hidden. He was a mess. His eyes were just so sad, and that fear—the fear that Mom would walk right out the door again, no doubt—seeped into his entire expression. And yet with it came longing. I knew, because I felt it, too.

It took me until then to realize that Dad and I weren't all that dissimilar. In some ways, I'd worn a mask just as weakly as he had, because for both of us, it was brought on by pressure. We functioned better alone, especially up against a society we just could not get worked up enough to like all that much. If Dad hadn't had Victor and Ira, and Mom, I wondered if he'd have shut in sooner. Or if I, had I not come to the complex, would have become more withdrawn.

My mother was frozen, as well. She had her back to Dad, and even then was covering her face with her hands. The last time she had shown herself on Corporation grounds, she'd revealed a concern that souls could be lost, just as they could be earned.

God, talk about another word I just plain couldn't define.

_'Soul.'_

Wasn't it different for everyone? _Life force,_ for some. _Passion,_ for others.

_Identity?_

Was a loss of a soul really a loss of identity? I wondered, looking between my parents, then. Dad with his goggles and high collar, now down and removed, Mom with her veil and hood, now draped around her neck and her shoulders: neither of them were shrouding themselves now as they had for so long.

Yes, I realized. A _'soul'_ was a _'recognized identity.'_

As half-mechanical clones, no wonder Irkens were kind of removed from the _soul_ concept. Mom had told Dib that our duty was to liberate the masses from Control Brain dominance and regulation.

So... it was up to us to restore identity.

Right? Sounded right.

When most girls turn fifteen, they go to driver's ed and get summer jobs. With my fifteenth approaching, I was going to be killing machines and promoting autonomy to an alien race. You know. Normal stuff.

"Miyuki..." When Dad finally broke the silence by speaking Mom's name again, Dib and I jumped.

My brother and I shared a quick glance at each other, then looked from our father to our mother as if watching a debate, concerned with her lack of response. She'd been so sure of herself, so high and mighty, as would be expected of a top-ranking Irken. This upset was humanizing her. Because she had no idea what to do. She was just as lost as anyone.

Dad went from fearful to frustrated. His eyes narrowed, and his next repeat of her name sounded like more of a command: _"Miyuki."_

She shook her head.

"Miyuki, look at me."

"...Charles, I can't..." Mom's normally strong voice trembled. There was longing in her tone, too, oddly enough. Great! So we were all in the same place.

Dad slammed his hands against the doorframe. "It has been _twelve years,_ Miyuki, _please!"_

"Mom," I tried, "this... whole... whatever... it doesn't have to be complicated. Look, we all need help."

"It's true," Dib sighed. "And I think we can all do something for each other, here. Miyuki, obviously, you've got your goals. I've got mine. Each to their own and stuff, but, jeez, wouldn't it just be _awesome_ if we could all somehow just, like, help each other out, here?"

Okay, so he couldn't shake the sarcasm, but I didn't blame him. The situation was ridiculous, but I got the feeling, for pretty much the first time, that the two of us had the advantage: brother and sister as the stronger, more focused pair in the family.

Go figure.

"This was not..." Mom began, panicking, "this was not part of the plan..."

"Nothing ever was," said my father. Slowly, very cautiously, he took a few steps away from the door. I felt myself tense as each step brought my parents closer together in physical space—each inch just one nearer than they'd been since I was only three.

Mom's breaths were so slow, I wondered if she was breathing at all. One step closer, one step closer... and then my father reached out, rested his hands tepidly on my mother's shoulders, and asked again, much more softly, "Look at me."

Stiff and guarded, my mother lowered her hands. My brother held his breath. He knew her erratic ways much better than I did, and this was not something 'usual' for her. Miyuki knew what she wanted, and provided information only as she saw fit, leaving us to piece together our jigsaw puzzle lives, struggling to figure out our own stance in our dual-natured identities.

Nothing had weakened her before. Nothing could send her flying off her cryptic tower.

Except Dad.

If anything, that day solidified the reality of that 'love' concept in my head once and for all. If my parents could still have some kind of connection, even after all that time, all those years of being apart, then maybe it was a force to take stock in after all. I'd have to see how it panned out for those two.

Swear to God, my heart stopped when Mom turned around. When she looked up at my dad, I saw a connection. And I saw my brother and myself in both of them.

"Holy shit," I heard Dib say under his breath.

"No kidding," I returned. This was unreal.

"Hello, Charles," my mother said, almost warily.

She appeared even more human when Dad hugged her. Dib and I stepped back somewhat, since this was unlike anything we'd ever known our family could be, but we couldn't deny that this was something necessary, something that really needed to happen if we two were ever going to reach some mythic state of understanding.

My parents, twelve years separated, worlds apart, held onto one another, tightly and desperately. "Don't leave me again," I heard my father state a plea. His arms tightened desperately around her; his fingers shook. My mother's own hands fell numbly at her sides.

"It was out of my hands," said my mother. Then, slowly, she lifted her hands. She reached and grabbed air. And then she held him in return. "I'm so sorry, Charles." My father bent his head in closer. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Miyuki."

"There was so little I could do, Charles, I... it fell out of hand, and I..."

"Well, I kind of doubt that you had _no_ control—" _damn,_ Dad, wow— "but now that you're here, I hope you can stay."

"Not long..."

"Then at least long enough for the four of us to talk?" Dad suggested, being stern in tone.

Almost alarmingly, she agreed, and the four of us sat down in my brother's office, circling in to face each other at the center: Mom and I had the nice, comfortable chairs, while Dad brought the desk chair around and Dib just leaned back on the desk. He was most likely to start pacing, so it was probably best that he stood.

"If I may," Dad began, "could we start with why you left?"

"And then the Mirror," Dib said firmly.

"Yes," I added, staring our mother down.

The enigmatic woman breathed deeply, and set her emerald green eyes on my father. "I was ashamed," Miyuki started slowly, "at my selfishness and negligence. I remain so to this day, though I do admit that my reasons for feeling so have only become more worrisome."

"You were afraid to come home?" Dad translated.

Miyuki nodded stiffly. "Because I failed."

"Wow," Dib snorted. "That was irresponsible. But human," he added when Dad shot him a scathing glare.

"I admit that it was not the wisest choice of action," Mom continued, "but it was, at the time, in defense for my family." She hadn't taken her eyes off of Dad. Her gliding voice seemed to thicken with even more of a Finnish accent in his presence, as a result of her nerves. Yeah, gonna go ahead and channel my brother here when I say it was weird that Miyuki _had_ nerves. "Please understand that."

"And the first reason to leave was...?" Dad fed her.

Mom had the most graceful slouch, I noticed. She bowed her head, lilac hair spilling freely as a waterfall down her shoulders, and leaned forward just enough to show that this was a seated position of discomfort and shame. "It was foolish of me to believe," she explained, "that the Empire would not be looking for me. The new Tallest, who holds the position at present, was loyal to—a-a subordinate of, rather... my Elite Commander." My heart skipped. Just as I was getting used to so much as seeing Mom again, let alone thinking of her as a human, she had to go ahead and drop something huge about her reign as Tallest.

"For many years," Mom continued, "I did not know what had happened to him." A normal person would have been shaking. Mom wasn't far off: she daintily clenched her fingers in on her lap, which somehow made every bit of the situation feel more tense. "I assumed that he was the one searching for me. I panicked. A warning was sent to me, here in this very building, and I began to make preparations, should I be taken away. But instead, I left. I left because the Tallest took Ira, and I was sure he would return for you."

Okay, now I just wasn't breathing. Dib noticed, and gave me a subtle but reassuring nod. I looked away, and my left hand went absently to the ribbon in my hair. God, I wanted Red to call back soon. I believed that, between Zim, Tenn and Skutch, we'd have our satellite call all figured out soon. We'd have more answers soon.

"You left to find Ira," Dad repeated solemnly.

"I did," Mom nodded. "And even then, I failed to save him. I left before it was my time. Please understand that it was all out of love."

"And you didn't come back because you were _embarrassed?"_ Dad was quite visibly angry, but kept his voice relatively controlled. My brother's fingernails dug into the grain of his desk. Mine dug into the skin of my own cold palms.

"I stayed away for many contemptible reasons. But I could not go back," said Mom, almost frantically as she strove to drive in her point, "not to the Empire, not even to you. For I had traveled back as I had come: by way of that Mirror. I did not remember the consequences until I had taken that route. Once back within, I could not live without. I left myself behind."

"Wait, wait, wait," Dib interrupted. "So, the Mirror... it took, wait, okay, it took you to that place where we were, I'm guessing? Where you trained me?"

"It did."

"And you'd been there before?"

"Only briefly, between that life and this."

"Oh, my God, explain that!" Dib erupted.

"I was presumed dead," said Miyuki. "I cannot remember the details of the instant my PAK was damaged, but the blow did not kill me, because of my assigned role to this Talisman. I begged for it to take me away, and it did. I found myself here on this planet, young and lost. In living here, I found a different path, only to become lost yet again."

"Back in the Mirror?" Dad guessed.

"Yes."

Dad sighed, keeping his eyes on her as well. "I lost who I was, too," he said, rather gently. "Miyuki, I don't think—"

"Okay," said Dib, letting out a frustrated huff of air, "loosely translated, you both fucked up."

_"Dib,"_ both our parents tried to scold him.

He shook his head, then stared them down. "You _both fucked up,"_ he repeated. "Past is past, guys. We're here. Here's what's going on _right now."_ He began counting the problems off on his fingers: "Red took Ira again, Victor's been unconscious for a _few months,_ and these things, just so you know, are _not okay._ So, _there's_ your past, guys, right there. Your friends kinda need you. You fucked up before, but there's such a thing as _letting it go and fixing shit. Then_ there's the fact that _Tak's_ still out there, MiMi's up to something, Zim thinks GIR has some kind of evil glitch or something like that... oh, and Zim is _kinda dying._ Or at least it really, really seems like it. I don't even know, but I do know that he was that Commander you were talking about, so _quit sweet-talking._

"And the _clincher,_ guys—are you ready for this?—is that Gaz and I still have _no idea_ what to do!" He was pretty red in the face by now, and had indeed pushed away from his desk to begin pacing. I tried to gauge my parents' reactions to Dib's outburst, but he was more entertaining to watch. That, and I wholeheartedly agreed with his words and his approach. "What does a Control Brain even _look like?"_ he went on, splaying his arms out to either side to indicate defeat, opening the question up to either Mom or Dad. "We _don't know._ And _something_ might happen on my birthday? If you can tell us just_ one thing..._ just pick _one thing_ to explain to us, you know, that'd be _awesome._ Thanks."

Wow. And I felt even more similarities to a member of my family. Dib and I had gotten close as siblings, sure, but now we were at the point where we just kind of had the same thoughts. Which was pretty nice, saved me from having to yell, too. Dib was definitely better at yelling than I was; he always had been. At least now he could concentrate when and how he did it.

Mom and Dad were both frozen, staring at him. Dib cleared his throat, and rested back against the desk. "So, uh," he said, opening a hand out in front of him, "whenever you're ready."

"Miyuki?" Dad prompted. "I believe you really do owe our kids an answer."

"Thanks," I managed to pass on to him and Dib both. Dad gave me a slight smile.

Mom thought for a few seconds, then resigned and sat up straight, her air of resolve restored. "You wanted to know about the Mirror?" she recalled.

"Oh, yeah, that, too," said Dib.

Mom nodded solemnly. "Everything begins and ends there. I cannot tell you how, but," she amended quickly as my brother and I started to let out a groan together, "I can tell you why."

"Mom, really?" I asked warily.

"I can," she nodded.

"Um, by the way," I said, "this 'I can' and 'I can't' stuff... is it, like, something is actually rendering you unable to answer certain things for us, or is it personal moral code?"

"It is a restriction," she confirmed, "brought upon by being made slave to this Talisman."

Well, I felt a little better. I had the sense that Dib did, too, but he barrelled on in his usual fashion, regardless.

"Okay," said my brother, winning him an unreadable glance from our mother, "so now that we know there's _some_ method to your insanity, let's hear the why."

Mom passed a glance around at all three of us, let out her breath, and began.

"Many, many generations ago," she said, playing the part of the oral historian, "the Irken race was much like the human one. Free, full of spirit, and warring only when necessary. The first war signaled them all. It was for natural resources. For the Tavis from which the Talismans and my weapons were created. Other races coveted its properties, and so we were forced to fight back. Over time, we became too strong. We came to rely on our advancements, many thanks, in part, to that mineral, which was at the time the sub-terrain of our planet.

"But we were few in number. The second of the Great Leaders of the warring generation came forth with the notion to clone, and the system has been in place ever since.

"At first, these clones were hardly recognized as individuals. They were the expendables. Until the PAK system came into place. Regulation after regulation, we lost our free will to the machines." I shivered. As did Dib.

"Traces remained, of course," Mom went on, "of the old DNA, the memory of the early generations, but those of us bearing the gene rarely came forward or took pride in our Originality. Until he did."

"Zim?" I guessed on a secret breath.

"Yes," my mother nodded. "He believed in equality at first. We were not very different, he and I. We worked together on an arsenal of Tavic weaponry, but for purer purposes than to be used by regulation soldiers for Control Brain needs. When I became the Tallest, I wanted to change things. I wanted to remove Brain influence, and have him beside me to bring back equal treatment for those of us with traces of Original DNA, but it got out of hand. His beliefs were soon tainted. His want for equality became a craving for superiority. Full conquest. His Elite consisted of none but Originals, and they became an oppressive force to combat the Brains' own soldiers. Yet he was still a visionary—"

"What does any of this have to do with the Mirror?" Dib snapped.

"Hey!" I shouted back. "Dib, we should know about what's happening to Zim!"

"Yeah, but I feel like she's avoiding the real subject!" Dib argued. And I couldn't fight that. "Thanks for the history lesson and all, Miyuki, but—"

"Yes," Mom sighed. "I apologize. And my time is precious." My brother rolled his eyes. "The Mirror, the Cabochon, and the Elite Blade are three of the four locks."

"Locks on what?" I wondered.

"The Control Brain core," Mom said. "The clusters of Brains reside in four sectors: Devastis, the Massive, our home planet, the desolate, computerized Irk, and Station Nine."

"Station Nine?" Dib repeated, fully invested.

"Research Station Nine," Mom clarified. "Where I supposedly died. It was the top satellite research lab, responsible for such inventions as the _Massive_ itself. It is now barren but for the strongest Brains, orbiting a planet now entirely—"

"A prison," Dib finished. That spark in his two-toned eyes was back, that childhood want and need to learn more, more, more about those alien races. "Vort, right?"

"Correct."

"So," said Dib, leaning forward, hungry for more information, "each Talisman is a lock. How do we break them?"

Mom shook her head, and I saw Dib trip. "I cannot tell you how. Only why they exist."

"Oh, my _God,"_ Dib groaned, grabbing at his temples. His glasses went askew, and I heard Dad stifle a laugh. "Okay. Okay, okay, fine. Fine! Fine." Dib set his glasses back into place, leaned back again, and asked, "Okay, sooooo _why?"_

Even I had to kind of crack a smile there. My brother is so odd.

"To keep individuality in check," our mother explained. "To keep the army strong. To eventually wipe out the last traces of the Original gene. Most of the Tavis in the sub-terrain was mined for the purposes of creating those Talismans, in hopes that they could not be broken. That was why my own arsenal had to use more of that same material." She hung her head. "I did not mean to inadvertently create one myself."

"You made the Mirror?" Dad asked.

"No." She sounded so guilty now. "I created the Blade. But such was the production. The Brains chose which items would best protect them, to keep themselves safe, and chose those who would wield them, based on personalities and weaknesses.

"When I was entrusted with the Mirror, I thought that I could use it to my own advantage, which was a mistake. Now I am loath to break it on my own."

"Little too useful, is it?" Dib guessed.

"It is both convenient and detestable. But there is a method to the locks—"

"Wait a sec," Dib interrupted. "One of them already broke."

"Huh?" Dad wondered.

"Yeah! Guys, remember?" Dib looked like he wanted to grin, but tried not to. "Red broke the Cabochon. When he took Ira back, he broke it! Miyuki, what's that mean?"

She looked stunned and impressed. "Red himself broke a Talisman?" she asked. "He must have changed."

"But he's Original, isn't he?" I guessed. "If, uh... if he was in Zim's Elite... I mean, wouldn't Red want them all to break? Otherwise, the Irkens are all dying, right? It's gonna be just machines. There won't _be_ a race if the Brains get rid of that gene."

"I was just thinking that," my father agreed, at the edge of his seat. "What I don't understand is, why the conquest, if there is no real race to claim superiority?"

"It is the only function the Control Brains know," said Mom, "based on the wars of our ancestors."

"Well, shit," the three others of us commented at once.

"So," said Dib, "why can't _you_ stop it? Why not break the Mirror now?"

"First and foremost, my time has ended," she answered. "But a Prophecy was made before the end of my reign: that my heirs would rise to restore Originality. You can end the sovereignty of the machines."

"Thanks for clearing up my to-do list," Dib just had to comment sardonically.

"What happens to the clones?" I asked Mom, taking the more practical route.

"That is for you to decide." Figured. But, fine.

"Well, hell, at least we're getting somewhere," Dib laughed.

"How much time do you have now, Miyuki?" Dad wondered.

"Hardly enough," she said, smiling weakly, "but maybe a word or two more."

"Wonderful," her husband responded without a trace of anything but adoration.

Before our conversation really could continue, however, there was a knock at the door. All four of us jumped, and while Dad and I stood, my mother covered her eyes with her thin black veil, and drew up her hood before she rose. "Uh... hi?" Dib called to whoever was on the other side.

"It's Tenn," came the voice from the other side. "Skutch and I got through, guys, we've got Red."

"Like, on the monitor right now?" Dib yelped. "Holy shit, it's like Christmas!"

"Whatever," said Tenn. "You coming?"

"Uh... hold on a sec." Dib looked around at all of us, and gave Mom a solemn nod. "Miyuki," he said, "thanks. Thanks for putting things into a little more perspective. Do you have the time to stick around a little longer, like for the call?"

"I cannot be seen by the present Tallest," was her response. I caught Dad's expression again, now that Mom was all shrouded again. It wasn't very positive. "I should go."

"You gonna be back?" Dib asked. "And if so, when?"

"I will not see you again until you choose to break orbit, I'm sorry."

"Then can you advise us a little?" Dib was sounding pretty irate again. "Like, when should we take off?"

"As soon as you deem yourselves able."

"Fine. I really have to take that call, now. Dad? Gaz? You guys gonna follow?"

"I'll be there in a second," I said, already shaking with the thought of hearing from Red. I really could not forgive him for what he'd done to Ira, but now I was curious: just what _were_ his real aims? How'd he feel about the Control Brains?

Dad lingered back for a moment as well, when Dib left to meet up with Tenn, who escorted him quickly across the hall to the transmission room. I stayed behind, and watched my parents share one last, tight embrace before Mom had to leave.

My father drew back the hood of my mother's cloak, and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Once this is over," I heard him say, "I'm going to find you, and I swear to God, Miyuki, this time it'll be different."

"Believe me," was her honest response, "I am ready to come home."

Worth hanging back, I thought, just to hear her say that.

Someday, they'd both stop hiding. And someday, we'd be a family again.

Certain things just had to happen before that time came.

Dad then patted me on the shoulder and took his leave toward the transmission room, probably able to sense that I wanted two seconds alone with my mother, too. I couldn't quite look at her, with her shroud back up now, but I hugged her all the same. She returned it very lightly.

"Can I finally say," I began quietly, "I missed you, Mom?"

"I miss you every day, dear," she told me in return. "I apologize that my actions caused such hard times for you."

"I mean, whatever," I said, standing back. "We can't go back or anything, but maybe at some point we can all sit down and talk again."

"I would enjoy that," Mom admitted.

"We are gonna see you again, kinda soon, right?" I guessed. She nodded. "Hey, but, um, before you can go," I said, as she began to walk me out into the hallway, "would you mind answering one more thing for me?"

"Of course."

"The locks," I said. "Is it one lock for each nest of Brains, or whatever?"

Mom nodded. "Breaking each will weaken them, but it is up to you and your brother, Gaz, to destroy the Brains completely. The Cabochon is the lock for those nested on the _Massive._ The next tier is Devastis, linked to the Elite Blade, and then the planet, linked to my Mirror. The lock on those nested on Station Nine is..."

"Something you can't tell me," I sighed. "Okay, fine. One more thing?"

"What might that be?"

"It's about Zim," I said. "Is he—"

As soon as we stepped out of the room, we were shoved back in.

I let out a yelp and heard my mother gasp. I felt myself get whirled around, and then my back slammed so hard against the office's inner wall, I could hear the added rush of blood that coursed in protest of being so horribly treated.

The door slammed shut, and then my mother was shoved up against the wall beside me.

Another awful scream began in my throat, but before it could pierce the air it was stifled. A hand, large and rough, covered my mouth, and absorbed my cry.

_"Sssshhh,"_ a harsh voice coaxed me. "Little princesses don't scream."

I was now trying so hard to breathe, I couldn't even attempt to squeak out a plea to be let go. I hadn't seen him in a while. I thought he'd be dormant again, with that sword locked up.

Why the hell was he in control again...?

Now I couldn't even blink. My eyes were transfixed, wide with terror at the sight of his own blood red ones. Not Zim. Just the body, not the person. Not at all. The Commander was back.

His entire torso was exposed, and raw. The bandage over his right arm was blood-stained, and the additional treatments on his dying skin were not in their best shape. There was still a scar across his chest, and I was becoming more convinced that it was caused by the PAK, not Skutch's weapon. I was so glad I couldn't see his back. Those crossed scars must have looked awful.

"Hello, again, my dear," he growled at me, his voice coarse and cutting. Distorted. Horrible.

I shook my head.

He grinned. "Oh, yes. Yes, yes, _yes,_ princess. It stuns the mind, doesn't it?"

Breathe, dammit, breathe! Don't let him get to you!

My mother spoke:

"It's you."

"Well," said the Commander, met with his leader once again, "now isn't this a pleasure. Take off that hood, Miyuki, and we'll have a little talk."

"It is for your own sake that I don't."

He laughed. "What," he jeered, "for the safety of my soul? Now, now, Miyuki. We've seen what good souls bring us, haven't we?"

I grabbed his wrist and jerked it off of my mouth to scream, "Let _go!"_

Outraged, he let out a deep growl and grabbed me around the neck. "Quiet, now," he ordered darkly. "You might get hurt."

"Fear," I choked out.

"What's that, now?"

"You're—his—fear..."

"I'm everyone's fear, little girl," the Commander scowled. "And I've been asleep for much too long."

"Stop this," my mother said firmly. "Your era ended with mine."

"Oh, Miyuki, my dear, stop thinking so small!" laughed the Commander. "You may believe in leaving things buried, but I can't live that way. I'll make you come around. Now, I'm rusty. I think it's time we played a little game." He looked from my mother to me, and grinned, "What do we say?"

"No," my mother protested.

"Oh, _yes,"_ he mocked her as he tightened his grip on me. "How about you, eh?" he asked, fixing his awful, awful red eyes on me. I wanted to cry. My eyes stung, my lungs burned. "Well? The heir of everything I lost? Does the little girl have _anything_ to say?"

"Where—" I started, before he choked me again.

"Aha!" he half-laughed out, so fucking pleased with himself it was as if he hardly acknowledged the existence of anyone or anything else in the world. "I haven't explained the rules yet, is that the problem? See, it's this little game called _taking back what's mine._ And here's the way it's played."

He glowered at my mother, dissatisfied with her shroud, then leaned right up to my ear, and said, gravelly, grating, "I get exactly what I want."

Behind him, a shadow moved on my brother's desk. My eyes snapped open in fear. Two red, LED-lit eyes pierced through the room, but I could not tell which of us they were focused on.

Had he been there the entire time…?

Hot breath tingled and dampened my skin. I was shaking. Pressed much, much too close to me, the Commander grinned.

"Ready to begin?"

– – –

– – –

**Author's Notes:**

Neeeeeeext week starts the Finale of Part 3~! :D Augh this one was satisfying to write (and I love writing Dib like this so much). Also: super early post, woooo! ^^ I love getting ahead!

So, uh, happy eleventh anniversary, _Invader Zim!_ (I remember sitting down watching the first episode air when I was… oh God I am so old. Power to this show, though, for being able to grip watchers for so long, DAMN. Gorgeous animation'll do that, though. And that music! And kind of everything. I AM RAMBLING. I will stop.)

Also I totally got mixed up… _next_ week is the TWFF anniversary, BUT I plan to do a little celebratory thingy on Sunday! Because aaahhh a whole year? Seriously, thank you to everyone who reads, everyone who has commented and faved, this is awesome to still be getting such awesome feedback after a full _year_ of posting this story~! :3 (I'll post info about the bonus in my user profile by Sunday evening.)

But yes! Next week, we start the Part 3 Finale arc, which actually came quicker than I was anticipating, but the way I've managed to edit it, it's working out well~ ^^ Miyuki still has some things to explain, but they maaaay have to wait… heheh. ^^; So, see you next **Saturday, April 7****th****!** Because it's Easter weekend, I'll be kind of busy, but a chapter WILL go up that day, probably in the morning or maybe even on Friday night, just in the interest of timing. Thank you so much for reading! See you next week~ :3

~Jizena

– – –


	34. Memories Finale 1: Psychological Warfare

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Zim's Records_

Imagine, if you will, sleepwalking in a nightmare. With the body as a puppet to the dream, there is nothing doable until the dream ends and the mind wakes up, paces, or yards perhaps, away from the security of the place sleep began.

With me, the worst of it came without the comfort of being asleep. The nightmares were memories. They were waking, and real.

The stronger the Commander's will became, the longer he could old conscious control of me. And the more run-down I became. The decay on my skin was getting worse, I was waking up exhausted, and Tenn was running the army now much more than I was. I had to conserve energy to defeat the Commander once and for all, but hell if I knew how. Hell if I even had a chance.

I'd also started feeling pretty sick.

I woke long after everyone else had, on the day that would signal the true end to everything. The end to the wondering and panicking, the end to my struggle—whatever the outcome—and the end to our hunt for Tak.

We were standing on the ledge, looking out over the battlefield. The end had never felt this close.

Unfortunately, neither had death.

The worst kind of death, too: the death of identity. The more I remembered, the sicker I felt.

That morning had definitely been the worst. By the time I finally made it out to the kitchen, Lex was cleaning up from breakfast, which had seemed very sparsely attended. Tenn was in the common room on Red's old laptop, and Skutch sat at the counter, staring down at a mug of coffee.

"I think it's cooled down to a proper temperature by now," Lex mentioned to him as she dried her hands.

"Yeah," Skutch half-sighed. "I'll get it eventually, I bet. Just wanna not scald my fuckin' tongue again, y'know?"

Lex tensed. "I wish you wouldn't swear that much, Skutch," she admitted.

"Wish for a cooperative Tallest while you're at it," Tenn said, not taking her eyes off of the computer.

"Yo, whatever!" Skutch snapped back at her. "Sorry, sweetheart," he added to Lex.

"And I _really_ wish you'd stop that," she said. "I have a boyfriend."

"See, like, I don't get that," said Skutch, as if she was just being conversational. "Like, what's it matter with all you guys? Y'all're dudes on one side and chicks on the other, here, and you're all friends, so, like, wouldn't you _all_ be _'boy_friends' and _'girl_friends?' Tenn, am I your 'boyfriend?'"

"Go to hell, please, Skutch," Tenn said smoothly, without blinking.

"'Scuse me for not knowing anything!" Skutch threw his gloved hands up in the air to show defeat. He saw me in his peripheral vision, then, and turned in his seat to salute me. "Hey, bro!" he greeted with a grin. "What's up, man, you sick?"

"Eh? Oh, probably," I said, crossing into the kitchen.

"Oh," Lex noticed upon my stepping in under the light, "you do look a bit sick. Did you sleep?"

"I think so," I said.

"Not well, then," she deduced.

"No. Sorry if I'm being kind of a downer," I added.

"It's all right." Lex smiled, but shuddered a little. I didn't blame her. "Well," she shrugged, her tone bright and helpful, "eat something. You may feel better after that. Sorry, I didn't really prepare much this morning; nobody really took breakfast."

"That's fine," I told her. "Toast'll do."

"Help yourself," Lex said kindly. "I've got to be going; never too early or late for an archery lesson. Help your brother with his coffee, would you?" she added with a slight, knowing grin as she left to gather up the crossbow I now noticed she had propped up against the end of the sofa. "Oh, and Tenn," Lex said discreetly. I loaded the toaster with two slices of soft brown bread. "Let me know if anything..."

"Yeah." Tenn picked her head up for the first time that morning. "Gotcha."

Lex took her leave, then, and Tenn went back to the computer. Skutch sank down against the counter to stare more intently at his coffee, which slightly bothered me, but I passed that by for now in order to ask, "What was that about?"

"What's up?" Tenn wondered.

"The thing, there, that Lex wanted to know."

"Oh. Uh, about Red," Tenn said quickly. "Skutch made another fake threat about an hour ago. Lex asked me to tell her if we hear from him."

"Oh."

"Yep."

I was both too tired and too pre-occupied to notice that Tenn was lying... or, at least, that she was covering a different truth. There was also the simple fact that Tenn didn't lie. Not in my experience getting to know her. She understood trust, and therefore did not chance breaking it once it was earned. Tenn was unlike other Irkens in that way. Skutch and I were certainly both guilty of aggrandizing that stubborn _need_ to lie—or, I _had,_ before earning Trust myself.

Tenn didn't play the 'get ahead to conquer and lie to get ahead' game that the rest of the Empire did... she was a good enough soldier, not to mention all-around person, on her own.

So I did not catch her tell. I did not notice her hesitation. And she wasn't covering for Lex, I came to realize later. They were both covering for me. Maybe that was my own folly, for not noticing. Maybe that contributed to the hell my day became. Or maybe what happened to me was inevitable.

But that morning, I was quite pre-occupied.

"Seriously, Zim," said Skutch, his eyes now level with the lip of his coffee cup, chin on the counter, "you sick? Sorry if I kinda fucked things up for you durin' that fight and this is some after-effecty kinda—"

"You can stop worrying about it," I told him again. "Please. I'll... I'll be fine."

"You sure about that, bro?"

I sighed. "I'm not making any promises," I said, "but the best thing I can do, really, is ignore it."

"Sure." He shrugged one shoulder.

My toast crashed up, and I went through the mindless motions of buttering the two crisp slices as I asked Skutch, "So what's wrong with your coffee?"

"Oh, dude, nothin's wrong with the coffee—which, like, Zim, this shit is _really good,_ like, it's fuckin' _awesome—"_ I laughed a little; Red and I had both taken to it, too... I wondered if there was some kind of connection there— "it's just me."

"Eh?"

Skutch drummed his heavy fingers against the counter, and sat up straighter. "The whole, 'Tak took away about ninety per cent of my sense of touch' thing..."

"Ninety?" I exclaimed. "Really?"

"Yeah, man, most of what I can feel is in my mouth." Skutch opened and pointed to his mouth to illustrate his point. "Like, taste buds or whatever. For, like, hot and cold and stuff. There's some feeling on my skin and stuff, just not like before."

"Shit..." I began to apologize, but neither of us wanted to hear _sorrys_ from each other anymore, since the sympathy only made the reality worse, so instead, I just stepped forward and touched my fingertips to the outside of Skutch's coffee cup, confirming it to be of a drinkable temperature. "You're good."

"Thanks, bro," Skutch grinned.

"No problem. You know, you can take visual cues, too," I told him, bringing my toast over so I could sit across from him. "Like, look for steam rising from it, that kind of thing."

"Sure. I'll get the hang of it." Skutch braved the coffee and drained it to half cup.

I smiled a bit. Even if it was little things like that, I wanted to help the guy out. He had developed a fairly outgoing attitude, both in regards to his situation and to things in general, which was reassuring, but he'd also told me exactly what his wrists felt like:

_"Like the moment she cut 'em off, like she just left that one shock there for good,"_ were his words on the subject. Which... yeah, cut into me a bit. I felt responsible for him, being his older brother, and I still could not get around the blame that was owed to me for having some influence on what had happened to him. Tak had gone a little overboard, though, and I had a feeling she'd done it as a warning to me.

Either way, I did want to get back at her for messing with both of us, not to mention Gaz and her brother.

Another thing about making the shared DNA connection with Skutch was that I'd started to reflect on what 'family' really. When I'd first come to Earth, I'd created robotic parents to give off the illusion to my neighbors of a 'traditional American family.'

Well... now I had friends. A girlfriend. A _brother._ I didn't have to put up a front for anything. I felt more like I belonged... more here than any place I'd ever been.

...Which was why I reacted so violently to the awful taste that hit my tongue the second I'd taken a bite of my breakfast.

"Ugh, _shit!"_ I yelped. Pretty accurate curse to happen to yell, too, because it really did taste horrible. But it was a taste my whole body recognized, as much as I didn't want to believe that.

Stubborn person that I am, I ignored Skutch and Tenn's questions as to whether I was okay and darted to the fridge. I tore the door open and grabbed the first thing I saw—a green grape out of a fresh bowl—and tossed it into my mouth. And spat it back out. Ripped open a milk carton, slammed down a glass from the cabinet above me, poured—and when I tried it, I had to run to the sink.

Fast as I could, I spun on the faucet and spat out the milk, then rinsed out the glass and filled it instead with water. "Oh, please," I begged, "just give me this..."

My entire body was rebelling against the food and drink I had for so long been able to not only tolerate but live on and enjoy. Yes. I knew the feeling. The feeling of my stomach turning circles, of my trachea closing and throbbing, of my lungs tensing up and my skin crawling with phantom pin pricks. The burning, acidic taste in my mouth threatened to mangle every one of my taste buds, but even a lost sense of taste wouldn't help the fact that my digestive system simply could not take the food.

This was a signal I hadn't even thought to be wary of. I physically could no longer tolerate any product of Earth, anything made by human hands, but I morally refused to eat anything coming from the Empire.

He was starving me out.

"Damn you," I snarled inward at the Commander, who I knew was looking on and enjoying every second of my current agony. "You're not going to win this."

With that, I took the risk, and drank down two swigs of cold water. I hadn't burned up at the sink yet with my skin alone in contact, which was a good sign... hopefully my internal system would prove as strong.

I was granted that much of a reprieve. Once I'd swallowed back the water, I sighed, and my stomach began to settle. My heart felt like it had slowed down something awful, but I was making do. My throat unclenched, and only a minor burning sensation remained tingling on my tongue. No, I was definitely not ready for this.

Nor what continued to come.

"_Well, now..."_

_Dammit..._

_ "You know your only plan of action now, don't you?" _The Commander's biting voice slithered through my ears and shook my foundation. But I was not giving in. Not without a fight.

_Yeah,_ I snapped at that awful, sentient parasite. _Dig you out and destroy you for good._

_ "Hilarious. Are we through pretending, now? I'd rather like to play something else."_

"Oh, fuck you!" I accidentally hollered out loud.

"Dude, I'm just concerned." I whipped my head up and spun to my right, almost tripping when I came face to face with Skutch. He reached out to steady me, then clamped his hands hard—and I mean _hard—_on my shoulders, being more careful on the right, and forced eye contact. "Hey!" he said. "Snap out of it!"

I nodded vigorously, then let out another sigh.

"Don't wanna end up like me, do you?" Skutch asked, hardly joking.

"What?" I wondered.

Straight-lipped, my brother nodded down at my right hand, in which I held the water glass. Or, check that, _had been holding_ the water glass. In my rage, in my retaliation against the force inside me, I'd managed to smash it with my fingers. There was glass on the floor between us, and a shard had cut into my palm. My eyes itched, and my heart sped up.

"Dammit..." I stammered, incapable of saying much else. "Why the hell is this happening now...?"

_"Because your time is up, human."_

"Shut _UP!"_ I shouted, doubling over forward, my hands gripping my hair as I tried to hold that awful force in.

"I didn't say anything!" Skutch protested. "Hey—wait, oh, fuck, hold on."

Quickly, Skutch tossed off his gloves, spun me around, and re-positioned his hands, so that his left gripped my left shoulder, and his right was splayed between my shoulderblades. "Hold your breath if you can," he cautioned. Then, he sent a jolt from his right palm into the dead center of the crossed scars on my back, which I was sure emanated PAK influence even with any interference caused by my clothing.

My vision went black, then stark white, then, for an awful second, red... and then things were back to normal. The voice was silent; my breathing and my pulse regulated. My arm felt hot with freshly spilled blood, but the Commander was currently under control again.

"How's that?" my brother asked.

"Fine..." I sighed out. "It's better now."

"Damn, Zim, that's really giving you trouble, innit?"

"You have no idea. Thank you for figuring out that PAK trick," I added, straightening. "I'd be in way worse shape without you around."

"Thanks for the ego boost," Skutch half-grinned, patting my shoulder, much more lightly.

He was getting a lot more able with those hands, I'd been noticing. There were some things that were still hard for him—typing, holding small or thin objects (like silverware, unfortunately)—but as far as practical uses, he was making rapid improvements.

Tenn, I noticed, had joined us, and was standing a safe distance from me, pocketwatch communicator in hand. The pocketwatches were old inventions of Dib's, which he and Gaz had used often on their little missions as kids, but he'd been making sophisticated improvements on them lately, so that once we infiltrated the _Massive,_ we'd have a reliable mode of communication. Skutch had confirmed them suitable for use around Irken computer frequencies, and Professor Membrane had made a tweak to the design, allowing them to be of lighter weight, and Tenn had been testing out pairs of them on and off. My assumption was that Dib and Lex were both fitted that day, based on the brief conversation the girls had had before Lex had left for the archery range.

"You gonna be okay?" Tenn asked me.

"I want to say yes," I told her, "but I'm really not sure."

"You, uh... re-developed Irken food restrictions, I'm guessing...?"

"Accurate guess," I said. "Sorry about my freak-out session, there."

"Who were you screaming at?"

"Myself," I answered weakly.

"Oh," said Tenn, plainly. She glanced at the fridge, then back at me, and said, "I'm gonna make another guess, that you probably don't want any of my provisions, huh?"

"I-I'd rather not," I admitted. "No offense to you, I just..."

"Nah, I understand. And, I mean, I don't want you to starve, but I don't want you to have to do something you're against like that. After all, I'd rather have this you around than the alternative."

I winced at the new open wound on my palm, and said, "You remember the Commander, huh?"

"Do I ever." Tenn shuddered. "Him, his tactics... you would rather I say 'he' and not 'you,' right?"

"Please."

"Gotcha." Tenn glanced between me and Skutch, then shook her head and gave a modest laugh. "Jeez, look at you guys. You're both falling apart on me."

"You gonna fight on the _Massive_ once it comes down to it, Tenn?" Skutch asked her.

"I'm leaning that way now."

"Sweet. We need ya."

Before we could begin that conversation, Tenn's computer began to flash with a signal. Everything else was abandoned, labeled unimportant, and all three of us darted into the common room, where Tenn scooped up the laptop, her eyes going wide and bright when a familiar minimalist symbol appeared on the screen.

"Oh, shit," Skutch commented, wearing an enormous grin. "The fucker totally bought it. We've got us a call, guys!"

Well, damn.

While Skutch went ahead of us to the control room to figure out the full signal and make first contact (and hopefully not piss Red off too much over the fact that the whole thing was a hoax), Tenn brought me into the bathroom to help bandage up my hand. She did a tighter job of it than my girlfriend was able to do on my arm, but I couldn't blame Tenn for her inexperience in tending to things like this.

In fact, I had a lot of things to thank her for. Being on our side was just the surface. She was organized, knowledgeable, and, well, trustworthy. And, I was noticing, highly concerned with my safety in my struggle against the person I had been. Hopefully, I'd still have some time to consult her a little before anything else could happen. I t was very literally psychological warfare against the Commander, so to gain anything on him, I needed dirt. I needed solid, sordid facts that could potentially give him pause, if not—though this was a chance in a million—do him in.

"Hey," Tenn said to me, catching my eyes briefly before we joined up with Skutch again in the control room. "You hold on, get it? Against whatever that Commander's still got on you."

"It kinda feels like he's got everything," I admitted.

"But you've got a goal, right?" Tenn checked. "Maybe this is weird advice, but... be stubborn. Hold on and don't let go."

"Huh." I contemplated her words for a moment, as we paused outside the Control Room door to wait for Skutch's signal to enter. "Man, Tenn, if everyone could have their heads on as strong as you do, we'd all be better off."

She just smirked. "You're welcome."

The door opened, and Skutch eagerly flagged us inside. "I'm on with just the engineer dude again right now, but we did it. Red's fuckin' pissed. Apparently. Once we've got him," he said to Tenn, "go get those guys, would you, sugar?"

"Nickname me one more time—"

"Bleh, whatev."

Tenn mouthed back Skutch's last couple of words sardonically, but he ignored her and turned to me. "You holdin' up okay?"

"For now." My new automatic response.

Even though he'd been coming and going for quite some time now, the Commander's presence that day seemed sudden, like the day I'd first discovered the morbid decay that plagued me still... and would, until I managed to defeat my Fear.

But Fear certainly took the better of me that day.

It made me mutter out excuses and doubt myself. Even though I fought, I was afraid, and as long as I was afraid, I could not win.

Fear clinched my heart and stopped my breath when I stepped back to look at the enormous screen. It conjured up cold sweat on my neck and at my hairline, stalled my thought process and reminded me of every reason the Empire was indeed a formidable force. Against me, against us, against everything. Fear told me how difficult it would be to defeat, and reminded me that there was always the option to join again.

_"Or take command."_

The insignia appeared on the screen, Irken writing plastered underneath. Which I luckily could still not read.

"Stand by?" Tenn read off. "He's taking his sweet time."

"Excuse me for a second," I said, wanting to not look at that damn insignia any longer. Every time I saw it, I felt like the Control Brains were watching me. Waiting. Getting ready to suck me back into the fold, and, worse, make me forget... "I really need more water."

"You need one of us to come with?" Skutch asked.

"No, no, I'll be right back."

And so it was that Fear pushed me out of that room. Out into the quiet, daunting grand hall. From Dib's office, I could hear voices. Four of them. And one of them belonged to...

_"She's here."_

A second later, GIR appeared in the hallway in front of me.

His eyes were red, and he did not move. All the little robot did was stare. "What?" I demanded. "What do you want?"

GIR said nothing. Only stared.

"What do you know?" I shouted at him, verging on hysterical. "Tell me what you know!"

Nothing.

"GIR!"

Nothing.

"GIR, I ORDER YOU TO TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!" I practically screamed. But there was nothing. And it was as if nobody had heard me. I was screaming to a deaf audience. Or, it seemed that there had never been anyone around but me.

The light in the hallway went out, and in front of my eyes, I watched a flash of memory. Heard only two voices... Miyuki's, and my own. Mine, the Commander's, from many, many years ago.

_"Why did you do it?" Miyuki asked. "Why remove your heart?"_

_ "It was useless. I don't need it."_

"STOP!" I screamed.

I squeezed my eyes shut... and was unable to re-open them.

_"Well, now,"_ said the Commander, to me. _"Seems we're in a rather nice position."_

_ What the hell are you talking about?_ I demanded. _Why are you so fucking powerful today? Why today? What's so fucking special about today?_

"She's here!" I heard GIR announce.

_"GIR, shut up,"_ I said. Said? Tried to say. Into my mind. No... no, it wasn't coming out of my mouth. Why the hell could I not say what I wanted to say? I was just... not able to say a thing.

"I'm taking over," said the Commander. I could feel my mouth move. In my mind, I was screaming. I tried to shut my mouth, and could not. I tried to move my limbs, but could not. All I saw, all I registered, was darkness. "I need to have a word with Miyuki."

_"STOP THIS!"_ I tried. _"What are you doing?"_

"Come with me. There's something I need to illustrate for you."

And then, I felt my body move. Felt it move, but was in control of nothing. Just darkness. Just darkness. Movement. And nothing. And movement.

When I could finally see again, the Commander had me staring into a mirror in the bathroom, so that I was face to face with my own reflection. My vision was laced in red. Color did not exist, only variants of a single hue; Irken vision, altered to human perception. But I could see my own face... see my own eyes, sunken and hollow, see that, no...

I was very clearly not the one in command of that body anymore.

_"What are you doing?"_ I demanded. _"What does GIR know? What are your goals, what's your aim?"_

"The only thing that matters."

_"WHAT ARE YOU?" _I cried out to only my mind. To only my past as the audience. Everything inside me burned. I could still feel—my heart was there, my lungs, my veins pumping human blood... I just could not start or stop any usual motion or function. I was a guest.

"Greater than anything. Above Irkens. Certainly above humans."

_"Shut up about humans," _I snapped. _"You haven't even given them a chance. Listen up, I want a soul, and I'm not going to let you take that from me!"_

"I already have."

_"Just because you're so FRIGIDLY ONE-DIMENSIONAL—"_

"Oh, no, no. How rude."

_"Then what? What are you?"_

"Complete. Or, I will be, soon. Four parts to a soul, human. There are only three parts to me," said the Commander. "I cut out the reason I needed a soul. See?"

He moved my hands to tear off my shirt, and after tossing the thing aside, he forced my eyes to focus on the reflection of the scar that crossed my chest. My heart skipped, and he must have felt it; his next action sent me reeling backward, and a sting surged in my back. The heartbeat turned into a pounding, a foreign kind of pounding, and not that of a heart pumping blood through veins, no... this was like the angered knock of a creature trying to break out of a cage. And it beat against my back. Between my shoulderblades.

The PAK wanted out.

"_Stop using me," _I demanded. "_Get out."_

"I'm trying."

"_Stop SPEAKING THROUGH ME!"_

"I'll do whatever I want. You do understand that this body is nothing but a puppet, don't you?" the Commander snarled. I tried to wince in retaliation to the pain, but he kept my body almost rigid, forcing me to endure while he thrived in it. "I can scar it if I want to. Or make it decay. It's all for the best, you know."

He turned my head toward the mirror, forcing me to watch 'myself' speak his next words. Red eyes stern, focused, narrowed. Scars and skin burning.

That wasn't even me.

"You're going to thank me for this," he said, twisting my mouth into a grin.

"_I'm going to stop you,"_ I willed him to hear.

"What for?" He pressed one hand to my chest, and gave me enough of my sense of touch so that I could feel the rough, hot scar, every crack and crevice of it; a canyon across my skin. "Your heart is going to stop, soon, and then this will all be mine."

"_What did you do with yours?"_ I screamed inside my head.

"I beg your pardon?"

"_What did you do with your soul?"_

"I don't have one, human. I took the precautions," said the Commander. "I have refused to earn one. I don't stoop. I don't take risks. I just take. And I am not in the position to lose everything to this disgusting planet and a disgusting little soul."

"_You shut up right now."_

"That's all it is. What," he mocked me, "you bind yourself to another person? Endgame? Ridiculous. Miyuki had power. I had power. Give yourself to that. For that, human, is what matters."

"_THE POWER TO WHAT?"_ I wished I could shout aloud.

"Funny you should ask. Allow me to give you a demonstration."

He didn't even give me the benefit of a blackout. Not as he moved me through the halls. Not when he let me look upon Gaz, and... her mother—what was she doing here?

Tenn had been covering something up.

She and Lex had known that Miyuki was here. To protect me, neither had said a thing. I had no idea if Skutch knew or not. And now I had no control over my own functions. Nothing internal but my thoughts, and marginal sight. I was trapped. I could not call out. I could not take control.

And it was all, I realized, due to proximity. That red-eyed robot orbited me like a satellite, shepherding my body within distance of that damned sword. Only three parts, the Commander had said.

While I aimed to earn four—Trust, Hate, Fear and Love—he thrived on only three, and every one of them was a symbol of power. Every one of them was a weapon. A mind, a weapon, and a machine. The three things that comprised every Irken, yet to a much greater and more terrible extent.

It was a losing battle.

_For now,_ I told myself. _Just for now._

The blackout only came when the Commander wrapped my hand around Gaz's throat.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Notes:**

So this was a bit of a 'meanwhile' chapter, but I just can't get too much of that Commander… :3 The narration gets a little funky here, but Zim's in a bit of a tough place… ^^; Next week we'll be getting back up to speed on where everyone is, and hear a little more explanations from those who have quite a bit still to say…

One year ago this weekend, I started posting _TWFF!_ Ahh! To celebrate, I've put together the full book-form (as a PDF) of _Part One: Changes,_ so that it can be read as originally written, without chapter breaks. _Part Two_ will post soon, too, and, once _Part Three_ is finished, I'll put that back together in PDF form too. I just like having the option there to read the full beast in one go. :3 So again, thank you so much for reading! _(Part One_will be up on my dA page by morning tomorrow!)

Not much left to go in _Part Three…_ things are getting revealing~

I'm on holiday this weekend so not much to say, but thank you for reading, and see you again next **Saturday, April 14****th**, with a pretty weighty chapter~ :3

~Jizena

– – –


	35. Memories Finale 2: Before the Leave

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Gaz's Records_

From an early age, I have been enamored with the dark.

I enjoy sundown to sunrise more than daylight hours. I like grey, rainy days. Melancholy music. Dark literature. And, oh, yes, I love a good horror movie.

Just, you know, not when I find myself in one.

I think that the moment I realized just exactly how much I cared about Zim was the moment I thought I'd lose him forever. There had already been a couple of times at which I'd felt that way, and there would be more. But that very moment, at the Commander's mercy: that was a test.

It was certainly not the first time he had cornered me and slammed me into a wall. Not the first time he'd studied me, with all the hate in the world, through those burning blood-red eyes. No, by now I knew him. I knew what a threat he was to Zim, to me, to the Corporation, to everyone.

But this was the first time in decades he had been in the same room with his ex-leader. With my mother.

It tore at my heart knowing that there had to be some kind of unconventional connection between the two of them. And I knew this because Irkens don't hide their emotions. They wear them on their sleeves. For the most part, anyway.

All I knew was that there was still enough in my mother of her heritage, and there was more than enough in the Commander to go around. They were what they were. No hiding that.

No changing that.

I wanted to cry. He had that effect on me. Every side of him. Whether he was frightening me to this extent, or frustrating me to the edge of insanity, or being just so damn nice I had no idea what to do, he'd been the first to make me cry, and was still usually the one I cried for.

I was so afraid for him. And for what he could do.

Every time I saw the Commander, I became petrified that I'd never see his human side again. I missed him even though he was right there in front of me. But I had to stand up to him. _For_ him. Or I'd probably just plain lose it.

"Stop," I attempted, at half-voice.

"Can't stop till I win, princess," he sneered.

_"Stop!"_ I tried again. "Do you know who you sound like right now?"

"Someone," said the Commander, slowly, "meant to take strides."

"You sound like Tak," I bit at him.

His eyes flared. I had ignited a flame. But I'd learned something vital: not even the Commander could stand Tak.

What the hell had she done in the past? I knew a fair enough amount of things about her, but everyone has a story. An inescapable history. I wanted to dig up more on Tak, I realized, so that we'd have plenty of dirt on her in order to eventually beat her at her own game. And, to be honest, I did get the sense that the Commander had something to do with Tak turning out the way that she did.

"Do not mention that name in my presence," the Commander growled, tightening his grip. "Do I make myself perfectly _fucking clear?"_

"Let go of her," my mother ordered.

"You'll be wise to shut up," the Commander snapped. "You may be my superior, my dear," he went on, cracking his neck to one side, "but I've been losing my patience with a great many things lately."

"Take out whatever you must on me," said my mother, "but you will leave my daughter alone."

Oh, he did not like that. His grip tightened, and I swear I saw a flash of white light. This person knew death the way some people know their siblings. It was a closer relationship than many I had come to know: the Commander, and his delirious penchant for destruction. _"She,"_ he roared, growing ever more impatient, as he had already warned, "is the greatest threat to the sanity I've already long since lost!" He slammed me back into the wall as he tried to prove his point. My heart forgot how to beat for a moment. "This little piece of flesh you call your blood and your heir, Miyuki? She's the mark of every way you could ever have possibly _betrayed me!"_

"—Shouts the one who long ago lost his only means of earning a soul," Mom countered, her words a venomous serpent that knew just how to nip the right vein.

The Commander let out an infuriated yell and tossed my mother aside, and the force of the throw turned him around to face where she had landed, a few feet away. He had not let go of me, either, and was choking me something awful. "FUCK—SOULS," he hollered down at her.

"Mom!" I screamed, finding a bit of my voice. She had only just recently reconnected with us, but the courage she was showing in the Commander's presence was her own form, I knew, of love. She was protecting me in a different, but very personal, way. And I had to love my mother for that.

In a flash, that little red-eyed robot was on her, where she'd fallen. Zim had been right not to trust him. Talk about games... what the hell was his? He had to have been linked to MiMi somehow—or, I got the sense that he was older. That MiMi was Tak's retaliation against him. That Tak was trying so hard to prove something to or about the Commander that she had gone far enough to create a robot—a satellite Control Brain at that, to my brother's calculations—that could counter the true mechanical demon GIR could probably be. I mean, talk about a shift. It was because of that sword, though. It had to be. Or Zim's memory flashes in general. All three were linked somehow.

God forbid all three were in the same room.

...Oh, shit.

"Time has slowed you down," Mom commented, as she easily picked herself up.

GIR took a leap and a swipe at her, but she grabbed him in midair and caged him to the ground under her right hand. With her left, she sent out an enormous blast of green energy, which rivaled the ones my brother could conjure up by a long shot. Though I should have guessed... both Dib and I had only about a quarter of what our mother could do. And I was pretty sure I was the first between the two of us to see her fight.

Before her attack could hit him, the Commander grinned, then whirled me around to use me as a shield. I screamed at the same time my mother called out my name, and I put up a quick energy barrier—something my brother and I had practiced but that I rarely had a chance to use—just acting on a reflex. Mom heaved a sigh of relief.

It had saved me, but the Commander then shoved me down to my knees and stood over me from behind, yanking me back with one hand caught in a rough fistful of my hair. My eyes stung. He leaned down and pressed his cheek to mine, and words slithered off of his tongue and into my ear: "Don't fuck with me, little girl. You're only making it worse for yourself."

"Let go!" I cried.

"I don't take orders from you."

Harsh as hell, he hurled me forward; my palms slammed onto the ground just in time to save me from colliding right on my face. The wind had been knocked out of me, but I gulped until I found air.

I had not been prepared for this. But I told myself to never let my guard down again.

My mother got to her feet and, still holding GIR, who was insultingly non-responsive throughout this event, hurled another blast at the Commander, who turned in time for the blast to hit his left arm rather than his right. "You were given another chance!" she shouted at him. The Commander merely snarled, and I felt him clench a fist around the collar of my shirt.

A second later, he was hauling me up to my knees, and then my feet. I choked for breath again, and he dragged me forward, then shoved me up to my mother. "Pretty little heir you've got, Miyuki," he rasped. "Take off your hood, you disgusting traitor. Let's see if this abomination of two races has her mother's eyes."

"My daughter is not yours to judge!" Mom reprimanded. "And if you could only listen to the heartbeat you were granted again, you would understand that my children are hope for both of these worlds. You, however, have lost your way."

"I have lost only what is unnecessary for survival," he countered.

"No," Mom snapped. "You cut out your heart, and from what I gather you shattered your memories soon after I fell."

"I believed for years that I had killed you," the Commander barked, letting go of me in order to grab my mother around the neck, "only to discover that instead you turned traitor and left—"

"It was—"

"You _left and you betrayed me!"_ he hollered. Why he didn't just remove her hood himself, I did not know. Maybe he couldn't. Mom was all about those weird 'can and can't' things. Maybe there were even some rules the old Elite Commander had to abide by. Codes he had to live by, even though his methods were so violent and self-serving. "We were going to cleanse the Empire, you and I."

"Your methods became corrupt," my mother scolded him. "You must understand that you will forever be a threat to yourself unless—"

"Shut up. I am going to get what I want if it rips me apart, Miyuki. I will have the Elite that can once and for all—"

"Stop!" I shouted, before I knew I'd spoken. "Just stop! Nobody's going anywhere talking about any of this, and just—"

"Hmm," the Commander grinned, his expression a nightmare all its own, "she may yet have a little point. Let's speed things up, shall we? We can play such a smoother round this way." He paused, and I watched his expression change. From disgust to loathing. And I'd only very, very recently seen true affection in Zim's eyes... in his face, in the very way he carried himself. There was just no way this was the same person...

I had to figure out how to separate them. How to eliminate the Commander for good, before he could destroy the human that I knew Zim wanted to be.

But then he whirled on me. Went again for my throat. Before he could, however, Mom drew a concealed knife from under her cloak and tried her hand at getting a cut in on his back. He was too fast for her. He ducked, jabbed his elbow into my gut, which got me choking and doubled back, then cut the side of his hand into Mom's ribs, shifted his position, and with his other hand yanked down her wrist. He spun her around, took the knife easily from her grip, flipped it back in his hand, kicked her back into the wall, and hurled the knife back at her. It stabbed into the hood of her cloak and stuck into the wall; she and I drew in a gasp at the same time.

"YOU," the Commander shouted down at GIR. "I'll give you back your name if you retrieve _Osdraken_ for me. NOW."

"GIR, don't you even fucking dare, you stupid robot!" I shouted.

Too late. He'd already saluted and was on his silent way.

But as soon as the door opened slightly for GIR to take his skittering leave, it was slammed open again, and an enormous blast of blue electricity hit the Commander while he was off guard. "What," I heard Skutch say, "the _fuck_ are you trying to pull?"

He stormed into the room; Lex followed a step after, and moved to the side. She had her crossbow trained right onto Zim. Skutch steadied himself, his gloves nowhere to be seen and his computerized hands sparking, and tossed his favored weapon—the _manriki—_in his brother's direction. The chain wrapped itself around his neck, and Skutch got him onto his knees.

The Commander, eyes both burning and cold, glared at Skutch as if he could kill him simply from that, but Skutch just snorted, yanked hard on the chain, and darted around behind him. "Sorry, bro, but I'm not about to fuckin' go through with this," he muttered, placing both hands on the Commander's back.

His hands sparked; he brought one up to the back of Zim's head, and then another flash of blue electricity lit up the room.

Zim—not the Commander—cried out in pain, and his hands went to the chain around his neck, which was conducting the electricity and worsening the shocking effect. I swear I could see the plague-like decay on his skin spread. His neck became red and scorched with the shock, and he started barking out awful coughs as he tried to breathe again after that awful scream he'd just let out.

"What on Earth—" Lex began.

"Gonna doubt that, sister," Skutch commented.

"Goes without saying," Lex said, rolling her eyes a bit, "but honestly! This is absurd!"

"Where's Dib?" I asked her, my voice wavering. My mother pulled the knife out from the wall, and simply looked down at Zim as he, shaking pretty violently, tried to regain both his mind and his breath, from where he was now doubled over himself on the floor. The scars across his back were bright red, and were cracked open somewhat. I knew I could see blood.

"Off after that stupid bloody robot!" Lex told me. "I honestly thought that thing was... was nothing! He never seemed like a threat before, Gaz."

"No kidding."

"Are you all right?"

"I have no idea."

Lex gave Zim a scrutinizing look over, then set her crossbow onto her back, and rushed over to put her arms around me. God, I was glad I had friends. Honestly. I hugged her, and I didn't even care how desperate I looked or felt or seemed. I just had to not think about what the hell had just happened. Or that it might happen again. Or that I knew that it would.

Zim was still shaking. He hadn't picked his head back up again. He could still lapse, but Skutch stood over him, ready to shock him back, or whatever it was he could do.

"Mom?" I asked quietly, glancing over at her. "Mom, what do we do now?"

As I should have figured, all she did was shake her head. "I am sorry," she said. "I have already been here too long."

"Mom, what the fuck?" I screamed. "You can't just leave after that! That's so irresponsible and stupid and—"

"And I will do more good if I am gone than if I am here," she said. "I am not asking you to understand, dear. I'm glad you are all right." Don't hug me or anything, Mom, that's fine. Yes, I loved her, but, damn. "I need to leave, now, or there will be no balance, and this war will take an awful turn."

"Balance, what?" I wondered.

"You will understand soon, Gaz. I promise."

"Mom, please, just tell me that there's still something we can do to help Zim..." I pleaded.

Mom glanced down at him again, as Zim was now trying, slowly, stiffly, to pick himself up. His hands were as shaky trying to keep himself steady as they had been the very first day I had seen him as a human. Skutch bent and very gingerly began to unwrap his weapon's chain from around Zim's neck, but he was keeping his guard up. "There is," Mom answered. "Tell him that I will collect his weapon. And that I will have it waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"Between all of you, dear," said my mother, "I am sure you can figure that out."

And then, just like that, she was gone.

"Nice to see you, too," Lex muttered.

"No kidding," I said.

"Are you going to be okay, Gaz?"

"I... I've just gotta see about Zim first," I told my friend.

"Yeah." The new voice in the room belonged to my brother, who appeared in the doorway at that very moment. "Yeah, I wanna hear what the fuck about Zim, too."

Zim coughed again, and, on his hands and knees, choked out, "What else do you have to hear?" It was his voice again, not the distortion belonging to the Commander. "I'm dangerous. I feel like shit. I can't control a damn thing."

"Oh, get a grip," Dib snapped at him, striding into the room. "It's this little fucker that keeps screwing you up, isn't it?" He held up GIR, who, I noticed, had been turned off. His black, shut down eyes were almost more terrifying than his gleaming red ones, since I was sure his internal CPU was still processing. Or, no, not processing. Plotting.

Zim lifted his head, winced, and touched a hand to the back of his neck, where Skutch's chain had branded a pretty bad rash after that electric shock. He glared, with his wonderful dark brown eyes, at GIR, and I saw an awful mix of warring emotions in his expression. Defiled and humiliated, Zim looked almost more human than ever. I tugged against Lex, and she tried to hold me back a little, but then, once she knew that I was not going to relent, she let me go.

Zim couldn't cry. So I did. I fell down onto my knees beside him and tepidly touched my hands to the backs of his shoulders, careful not to touch any of his burns or scars. There seemed to be very little undisturbed skin left on his arms and torso. His back really did look awful.

"No," he answered my brother. "I mean, GIR has a hand in it..."

"No kidding!" Dib exclaimed. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you. Jesus, I'm usually the one doubting everything, and I didn't even think about this. I'm really sorry, Zim."

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry I just attacked your sister and your... and y-your mom..." He winced, and Skutch's hands sparked in anticipation. Zim shook his head, though. He had control, for now.

I leaned in, so that I could be closer... which was weird and kind of stupid, given what he'd just been doing, but I had to believe that they were separate. I had to believe that they were different. "It wasn't you," I said. "I know that wasn't you."

Still trembling somewhat, Zim reached up with his left hand, and set it lightly over my right, where I was already just barely touching his skin near his shoulder. His grip strengthened a bit, and he let out a sigh. "How'd you shut GIR down?" he asked Dib.

"Blasted him a couple times. Kicked him into a wall and took this out," my brother answered. He dug into his pocket, and pulled out a memory disc, of a half-moon shape. It was blinking red. "I figure we might be able to get some stuff off of this."

"I probably shouldn't watch," Zim admitted. "I don't even know what I should do now."

"Well, right now, we've finally got Red on screen," said Dib. "Dad and Tenn are holding him off, but he's probably not going to stick around long, and I need to hear whatever it is he has to say. You good to move?"

"I honestly don't know."

"We'll be right there," I tried. "Dib, go ahead."

Dib gave me a look over, and then turned his attention on Zim. I saw everything my brother was thinking. He hadn't said it, but he was wondering if we really could still trust him. GIR was one thing. And Zim did change. He'd been changing, back and forth; lapsing, blacking out, his mind warping back into his old Elite ideologies, his memories slowly but steadily making more and more trouble for him. And all of us.

There was a lot to discuss, and we all knew it. But it was all, I could tell, going to come right down to us leaving. I wouldn't be surprised, I realized, if we were in orbit within a week. Within a few days. All we needed was some information from Red, and a plan that involved teams and a hell of a lot of cooperation.

We had to bring down the Control Brains. Meaning we had to destroy the Talismans first. Zim's weapon was one of them, but it was going to play a pivotal role in his defeating his Fear, so it seemed, and wasn't within the building anymore. Which, I believed, played a part in how he was able to stay in control now. GIR was out of commission, and _Osdraken_ was gone, not to mention my mother had left, and therefore the Mirror with her, since I believed that the Mirror had presence wherever she was.

Then, we had to take down Tak. Unless Red and Ira already had.

And, yes, God, yes, we had to get Ira back. We had to free him, and then he could work his medical expertise on Victor, too.

All in all... we just had to be whole again. And until then, we just had to hold on. Keep it together.

"I'm not leaving you two in here alone," Dib said flatly.

"I'll stand outside," Lex offered. "If anything happens, love, I'll find you. I'll be sure we're right along."

Dib smiled over at her, and said, "Thanks. Hey, Skutch, you, too. Good thinking."

Skutch shrugged, and grinned rather nervously. "Someone had to do somethin'."

"And I'm glad you did. Hey, Zim."

"What?" he wondered.

Dib took a moment to pause, then smiled a bit again and said, "Keep it together, okay? We all need you for this. And I'm pretty sure we all want you to succeed. Not that other you. Got it? No slipping up."

"I'm trying, Dib, I swear."

"Well, don't lose it on the way. Come on, Skutch."

Skutch saluted him a little, then offered Zim a hand up before he could leave. Zim stared at Skutch's hand for a second until his brother said, "Dude, it's fine. You can touch it unless you're afraid to. I don't have any feelin' in my hands and it doesn't shock me to hold shit or anythin'."

"Sure," said Zim, a little doubtfully. He took Skutch's hand, and Skutch pulled him up to standing. I helped out as best I could, and stood beside Zim, keeping him steady. "See you guys in a minute. I've just gotta remember how to breathe."

Once our respective brothers had gone back to the control room, and once Lex was stationed, crossbow ready, outside (I admit that did disturb me a little, but I trusted her aim; she wouldn't issue a kill shot on Zim, but still, an arrow through the skin in any sense would do some bad damage), Zim and I stood in Dib's office together in silence.

His neck looked awful. His back looked awful. His arm. The scar on his chest. Everything.

Everything but his eyes.

His eyes were human. And sad. And beautiful.

I still felt like I missed him. Like he'd already gone away somewhere and I didn't know when he'd ever come back. Like he was the soldier, and I was on the homefront aching for a letter.

Frightened for what he could become, I pressed a kiss onto one smooth part of his skin, at the back of his neck, and I felt him shiver. He turned to face me, and heavily rested his forehead on mine. Then, still moving as if he'd been in rigor, he tilted up my chin, and spent a few seconds doing nothing but keeping full focus on my eyes.

"Can I tell you something?" he asked me. The words shocked me, coming from almost nowhere, out of the silence.

"Anything."

"You've got to be one of the bravest people I know." I felt myself blush. "I mean it," Zim insisted. "I could have killed you."

"You didn't," I said firmly. "You didn't, and I think that the Commander holds back, because you're still alive." My eyes finally itched bad enough by this point that I was just letting them leak when they had to. Zim looked sore to see me cry, but he let me, which I really respected him for. "You're still alive," I repeated. "Zim, for fuck's sake, you're still alive. Do something about that, would you?"

"What, like, don't die?"

"Yeah, like that."

"I'm trying."

"Well..." I took in a deep breath, and wanted so, so badly to touch him closer to where I knew his heart still was. The Commander had cut out his heart? Isn't that what Mom had said? Cut out his fucking heart? I had no idea what that was all about... maybe GIR's memory chip had something on it about that. But Zim had a heartbeat. I knew it, because I'd felt it before. And that was what Mom had meant by his having a second chance. "Zim, I think that that part of you is your Fear."

"He is."

"But, well... maybe he's afraid of you a little, too."

"...What?" Zim's eyes widened in astonishment.

"I'm just kind of getting it. Zim, what if that you is afraid of being human? Convince him."

"...How?"

"If I knew, Zim, we'd probably be kinda done with this war," I pointed out.

"True enough."

I managed a little smile. "But, hey, Mom said she has that weapon. That sword. She says it's waiting or something, that she's got it somewhere..."

"Do you know where she went?" Zim wondered. "Ugh, I just... I can't believe she was here, and that awful PAK of mine just—"

"Don't worry about it," I dismissed. "I have a feeling you'll get to talk to her."

"Yeah, I'd like to hear her explain some things."

"I've still got stuff to ask her, too," I said. That was just it with Mom. Always questions, more questions, more questions, an answer or two, more questions. But once we made it to the _Massive,_ once we started in on that mission she had for us... I was confident that things would fall into place and start to make sense. "But, Zim, I think whatever she was talking about, I think it's all about that Mirror. Dib said he saw the Mirror when he trained with her."

My boyfriend took in a deep, deep breath, and finally smiled. "Makes sense," he said. "I think I get it, too."

"Yeah?"

"I've just got to fight him."

"Your memories?"

"Yeah. I think I know how, if that Mirror is involved."

"Well," I said, reaching up to touch my left hand to his cheek, "you better win." Zim laid his hand over mine, and touched his thumb to the little stone on the ring he'd given me. "Look, I need you to, okay?"

"You do?"

Yes. Yes, I did. For some reason, I couldn't quite find the words, but yes. I needed Zim to succeed. I needed him around. I needed to be near him, I needed to be able to talk to him, I needed him to hold me and make me feel like I had a purpose. I needed him because I knew he needed me. Because I knew he loved me. Because I was pretty sure I loved him. He just had to believe in himself a little more. He needed to rise above the things that were threatening to tear him apart.

"Yeah," I told him. "Listen. You're a really good friend to me. You're my boyfriend. I kinda like having you around."

"Kinda?"

"I _really_ like having you around. Don't mess that up, Zim, please."

He wanted to hug me, I could tell, but his skin was so raw we both knew that was a bad idea. We fell silent again, and he gave me a light kiss—he seemed a little scared to, given the events of the day so far—before we slowly began to make our way out of the room and toward the control room.

Both of us desperately needed to hear what Red had to say. We just had to hold each other up, just a little while longer, until the inevitable leave.

I could forgive Zim for his blackouts. I was able to forgive him for what he had done to me, and to my mother. I was able to forgive him, because I was confident that the Commander was another entity, and one that could be defeated. He just happened to be stronger right now, but I knew that Zim could fight back. I knew that he could win, if he really put forth the effort. Odds were stacked up glaringly against him, but if Zim wanted his soul badly enough, he would find a way to pull through. And I knew that.

So I had to do what he loved to tell me: stay strong. I had to do my part, and he had to do his. We were so close, now, to settling everything. To learning everything. To completing our missions and getting on with our lives.

I just didn't want to get on with mine without him.

He was able to get his resolve back pretty well, though he still shuddered every few minutes, and I did wonder how much longer he could hold out. But he was able to become the stronger one again once we were in the control room.

Because that was when I fell to pieces. When I learned about what had happened to Ira.

There was too much happening to all of us lately. Everyone's lives were in peril and had been threatened at least once.

I just hated feeling so put together one minute, and so torn to shreds the next.

All I knew was that I would do anything... anything... to make sure that none of us had to feel that way again. To make sure that I didn't have to see the people I cared about change in front of my eyes. To make sure that we could all be all right again.

We had to pull it together. Plain and simple. We had to leave. We had to go to war against those Control Brains. We had to leave. And fight. And win. No matter what.

– – –

– – –

**Author's Note:**

Also known as 'The Chapter In Which Miyuki Kind Of Does Something.' ^^;;;

More discussions and more reveals! And pleeeenty more on the way! Haha, of course Red's reveals don't come in until the final chapter… :3

And, yep! Next week is the last chapter of Part Three. Totally kind of snuck up on me, but it's the right place to end. Even if it is all wonky right now, we're coming up on the last part, when literally everything does start making sense (even GIR, haha…) and falling into place… ^^

I do, as I think I warned a couple chapters ago, have to take a longer hiatus between Parts Three and Four than the usual two weeks-ish I've done on the past parts. This is for a few reasons (mostly life/schedule related), but one of them is honestly that I just want to get Part Four like… fully buffered. I'd rather put that one out after doing one huge hiatus at the beginning rather than have to take breaks in between, since it really wouldn't be doing the story justice if I did, so… blaaah anyway I'm rambling, but yes, more details on the hiatus and posting schedule for Part Four next week!

Thank you so much for reading~! :3 See you with the _final chapter of Part Three (whaaat?)_ next **Saturday, April 21****st****!**

~Jizena

– – –


	36. Memories Finale 3: Conquest

– – –

**Author's Note:**

_Invader Zim_ is -c- Jhonen Vasquez! Only the events of this story, characters specific to the story, and character tweaking (heh) are mine. :3

~Jizena~

– – –

_Zim's Records_

I felt sick.

The kind of sick that made breathing difficult. Everything about my internal chemistry was rebelling against me; my heartbeat had slowed, my back ached, my arm burned, my skin was crawling. And I was dizzy. Dizzy from having lost control of my mind, dizzy for knowing the horrible things I had done, dizzy from being forced to accept that the Commander had loved Miyuki.

My guess was, she'd rejected him, he hadn't been able to handle it… and he cut out his heart to distance himself from anything to do with his Original ability.

He—_I…_ had violent, erratic ways. I admit, not every action I have ever taken has been the wisest, or smart at all, in any way. But I wanted to start over.

The more I lost control, the more often my thoughts immediately following those blackouts stacked up to hopes for a better life for myself. I couldn't just hope for it to happen, though. I had to grab onto that future and not let go, and do whatever needed to be done in order to wipe out the negative influences from my past.

Gaz had hit the nail on the head at last: it was possible that my fear of the Commander was reciprocal. But that did scare me in many ways. No matter which way I looked at it, if Gaz's hypothesis was the case, fear would inevitably win. I had to be all right with that. With either being the victor and accepting that I was indeed a force to be feared, or the conquered with the knowledge that terror had won out… how the hell was I going to fight this battle?

That had been my question from the start.

It was me against my own damn past. And all the baggage that went along with it. I wasn't just fighting back my PAK, I was fighting memories. Years and years of things that I had forgotten but that others held grudges against. That others wish had not happened. That still others might remember fondly.

I had to think of it in terms of past, present, and future. Not as _me vs. him._ No. No, this had to be me making sure that the past did not repeat itself. The atrocities I had committed as the Elite Commander were unjust and yes, I'll say it.

Inhuman.

I wanted harmony between the races, I realized, as much as Miyuki did. Maybe that carried over from the person I'd been even before becoming the Commander initially, but I had to accept it. There was going to be either balance or bloodshed, and the outcome was resting on all of us.

On Dib and Gaz, to step in and destroy the Control Brains; on Tallest Red, to lead without the influence of the individuality-suppressing machines and to trust the humans in forming a partnership; on me, to not fall victim to my past in order to commit more mass genocide as I had done before.

First thing was first though. The report from Red.

The transmission was already well underway by the time Lex led us into the control room. Walking was a task I felt like I needed to completely re-learn after that ordeal, so detached from control of my own motor functions I had been, and when Lex noticed that I seemed not to be posing any present threats to anyone's safety, she locked her crossbow behind her back and essentially spotted us as Gaz held onto me during our short but physically painful walk down the hall for the last part of the call.

Just when I thought I could breathe again, the things Red disclosed to us had me choked and gasping.

I knew that things weren't exactly going to go smoothly for the rest of the evening when the very first thing I heard upon entering the room was Dib shouting at the Tallest, "You _fucking asshole!"_

I could feel Gaz's heart skip inside her. Her blood began to rush, and while I took the sudden quickening of her heart as a cause for alarm, my PAK whirred and thrashed against my spine from the inside like the predator it was. The Commander had taken out plenty on Gaz thus far, and for—from where I stood—no good reason at all; slowly, shaking, I let her go. I eased my grip and stood on my own. Watched, and watched only, as she rushed to her brother in a state of panic.

If my past wanted to hurt her, simply for existing as she did, for existing as one of Miyuki's two children, I couldn't give it a window to do so. Push back the fear before it could fully arise. Push it back until I was in a position to conquer it.

Because after all… in the end… it all had to be about conquest.

One way or another. Whether of a race, of a physical plane, or of my own mind: I existed to conquer. Everything had to be a battle. Nothing could be simple. Struggle though I might, I had been born a soldier. Just like Skutch, just like Red, just like Tenn and just like Tak. Every one of us was a soldier, but differences set us apart. Tak had chosen her path. Tenn and Skutch were walking thin lines. Red had his own challenges. And there I was, stuck with trying to figure out what kind of battles I was meant to fight from now on.

Myself first. Then, I'd have to see. But I wanted to fight _for Earth._ For Gaz. For anything I cared about.

And, above all, for the right reasons.

I had morals. The Commander did not. I wanted morality. I wanted humanity. I would fight for that. For the freedom to choose my battles at all.

As I stood there, contemplating these things, I saw Gaz fall into her own resolve. She, too, was a fighter; a soldier in her own right. Gaz had always been a fighter, and I loved that about her. She did not sit back and let things happen. She asked questions, and she fought back if she did not agree with something.

I loved her.

I was in love with her.

And everything she stood for.

I'd be her soldier. No matter what.

I felt a bit of my strength return; I'm pretty sure Tenn and Skutch caught it, and gave me acknowledging glances.

Others in the room, though… Lex was looking nervous, having not been kept fully abreast of why Dib had lashed out at the Tallest; Professor Membrane looked broken. As broken as he had whenever he was reminded that there was nothing that could be done, at present, to help Victor Haynsworth's situation.

Oh. Damn it…

"What's going on?" Gaz yelped. "Dib! Dib, what's going—_RED!"_ She went right for the kill. Right for the throat. The fighter in her. "Red!" Gaz screamed at the screen. "What did you do?"

Tallest Red was a sight to behold. I had not seen him in quite some time; none of us had, and it took me a second to remember that he had indeed gone back to being Irken after his stint in a temporary human form on Earth. Red had started getting almost abnormally comfortable with being human, I had noticed. Toward the end, he seemed to have been making more of an effort to help out, not to mention making more of an effort with getting adjusted to what it was like to be on Earth.

All of that behind him, the Tallest had a strange, blank look about him. He was projecting very clear, very real guilt. Almost as much guilt as that which Dib flashed upon glancing at his sister for the first time since she had entered the room.

Red knew that he had done something wrong… and for the first time, as far as I could recall, he was automatically admitting to it.

"Can we all calm down?" were the first words I heard him say.

The signal coming from the _Massive_ showed a large, circular room that I was all too used to seeing, from my days as an Invader, now so long ago that time felt hardly tangible in my caverns of memories, lost among things I had been re-learning. Two large chairs were positioned on an elevated circular platform inside a similarly circular observation deck, with floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides, other than the large screen in the middle that was functioning as our own window into the ship. Control panels lined the walls and windows, with Irken operators in high-collared uniforms manning each.

The room itself was of varied red hues, but there was an odd glow to it, as if in warning, that I could not remember having seen before. The _Massive_ was in a state of alert, and I had a feeling we were about to find out why.

Red was not sitting, as he had been during those old calls of mine. No, he stood, his usually proud stance replaced with a guilty slouch, fingers—two long ones on each gauntlet-covered hand—twitching with nerves. That was such a tell. Tallest Red had never been nervous before.

There were residual signs of humanity in him.

If I didn't know any better…

"Oh, my God," I felt myself whisper.

"What?" Lex wondered under her breath, being the one standing closest to me.

I just shook my head in disbelief, wondering if we would get any more information on this possible, wild theory of mine…

There was just no way. I was being ridiculous. Either that or highly observant.

Red was also the only one in the room, his board operators aside.

No 'Purple.' No Ira.

"Where's Ira?" Gaz was the one demanding the question, but all of us were thinking it. She had the right to ask. My heart sank only a little; she had insisted many times that she loved him as a daughter loves her father. In a familial way. More than platonic, but not in the way that I loved her. I still had a hard time getting that: the different kinds of love. Maybe I'd understand someday. Soon.

Red glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to us, and began, "Look…"

_"WHERE IS IRA?"_ Gaz screamed.

"Calm down," Red said.

"No!" Gaz snapped. "No, I will not _calm down!_ You took him away _twice,_ Red!"

"Tallest," I heard him mutter.

"I really don't care!" Gaz shouted, having also heard him. "You're not gonna be Tallest for long if you keep being this dishonest and horrible! You took Ira away once over a decade ago, and you took him away again when you damn well could've let him go! Why'd you take him?"

Red froze. Oh, God, I was right… "He—I—" Honestly, what the hell? Red rarely ever stumbled over his words. "I had to! I needed him!"

"Victor fucking needed him! We all did!" Gaz argued. To my left, I saw Lex shiver. To my diagonal right, I saw Dib attempt to give her a look of reassurance. "You took him for no good reason other than being stupid and selfish!"

"Maybe I am, but what's done is done, and—"

"That," Dib cut in, "is the shittiest thing I think I've ever heard you say. 'What's done is done?' Bullshit. You did the wrong thing, and you can bet I'm going to be fighting you one on one about this as soon as we get there and as soon as we sort the rest of this whole damn thing out."

"Just tell me where he _is!"_ There were tears in her eyes. "Tell me where he is, Red, tell me what you did with him!"

Tallest Red cleared his throat, and I could see embarrassment in him as the control board operators glanced back at their leader in awe and confusion. And why wouldn't they? None of them knew who 'Ira' was. To them, there were two proper Tallest; that was just the way of things. Tallest Purple was supposed to be in that room along with Red.

"As you know," Red began, "I—Ira and I came back in order to track Tak down. It wasn't easy. Her temporary reign gave her free movement around the Empire, and there's still a following that thinks of her as the Tallest. So we've been dealing with that, and it's gonna be just one of the things you'll all be up against."

"Don't care," said Dib, rushing his words; "move on."

Red shot him a glare that was much more characteristic of him than that guilty slouch was, and spoke more strongly as he continued. I could still detect guilt and even remorse in his tone, though. Red had changed… because he had allowed it to come. Part of him was still human. Put in other words: he was just one step behind me. Probably unintentionally, but I'd earned Trust without knowing, too. Red's Originality had just… moved up a step, that was all. It was slight, but it was there.

"We tracked her, all right," Red went on explaining. "She's still plotting something, but for right now, we've got her trapped. Unfortunately, she's trapped somewhere that the fight's gonna have to go."

"Where is she?" asked Skutch.

Red snapped a look at him, too, probably pissed for finding out that Skutch had not, indeed, been holding us hostage. It was pretty obvious that Red was kind of embarrassed for letting Skutch pull one over on him. It was a good lie on Skutch's part, but Red probably felt like an idiot. Red was kind of an idiot, but that was, especially at present, neither here nor there. "She's on Vortian Research Station Nine."

My PAK whirred.

I heard the Commander laugh inside my mind.

_"We've come full circle, eh, human?"_

_ Shut up. Not now._

_ "Oh, no. But soon enough."_

_ Just. Shut. Up._

He did, but I was shuddering. If I went to Station Nine, I'd be entirely on his ground. That was the last place the Commander had fully been himself. That was the location of Miyuki's alleged murder. The place Lard Nar had once run.

The place where now Tak and every facet of my past were waiting for me.

Of course it had to happen like this.

"She's trapped on Station Nine," Red repeated, as if to just dangle that information in front of me that much closer and more potently, "and I set up a forcefield around it. Nobody can get in or out without my code. I'll let you in when you need to get there."

"How do you know we have to go there?" Dib demanded.

"If you're after the Control Brains, you're going there," said Red. "But there's part of the current problem."

"WHERE—IS—IRA?" Gaz demanded again.

"He's here on the _Massive,"_ said Red. After a second or two, he added in a lament, "Well… part of him is."

"What did you do to him?"

"I didn't take any physical action," Red assured her, "but having spent so much time as an Irken has started taking its toll on him. I can't believe how stupid I was."

"I can," I heard Tenn mutter. Gaz was probably thinking it, too, but she'd been struck dumb.

"I forgot what destroying the Cabochon would do," Red said mournfully.

"It broke a lock on the Control Brains, right?" asked Professor Membrane.

Red did not look one bit happy that a human had access to that kind of information, but he pressed on. "So there's Control Brains here on the _Massive._ If I destroy them, they count that as mutiny. I'm already in enough trouble for destroying a Talisman. I'm not exactly in the safest position right now. I don't regret destroying it, because believe it or not, I'm still with you guys in this fight, as long as I get my position back at the end of it."

"That depends," Gaz warned him through clenched teeth.

"Agreed," Dib added. "Just get to your point."

"My point is, the Brains were the ones that really issued Ira's punishment," said Red. "Under lock, they didn't have all that much power over him, like they do over all of the PAKs in the Irken Empire. Ira was given a kind of loaner PAK; it isn't entirely real, cuz, y'know, he's got a soul and all instead. But the Brains are more powerful now. You need to take care of these Brains immediately. I'm actually asking you. Honestly."

Red took in a deep breath.

And added, "Please."

He looked hurt. Mixed in with all of that guilt and remorse was real, shivering pain. The pins and needles that Irkens could never feel due to lack of compassion. Oh, Red felt compassion all right. He cared about Ira just as I cared about Gaz. Only it had taken him until now to figure that out.

"What… happened…?" Gaz snarled out.

"He…" Red glanced over his shoulder again, then confessed, "Ira's lost his mind. I'm sorry. Believe me, I didn't know this was going to happen. It's all this exposure. The PAK, the Brains, the Cabochon, everything. I'm not saying it isn't entirely not my fault, I feel awful, but I'm at a loss here, there is literally nothing more I can do. There is nothing I can do, so I'm…"

"Okay, stop," Dib commanded. "Red, it doesn't matter right now if you're sorry or not. What exactly happe—"

"You… piece… of… _shit!"_ Gaz got out, screaming at the end. She made a dive for the screen, as if she could beat Red up right then and there. I felt myself move forward to grab her, but Dib was much closer, and he held his sister back. "I swear to God, Red, I am going to skin you and wear you as a fucking _pelt!_ You're not sorry! You're not sorry at all! You made this happen! It's your fault! It's your fucking fault! I am going to beat you within an inch of your life, Red! Where is he? _WHERE IS HE?"_

Red opened his mouth to say something, but the next voice I heard was Ira's. Though his voice was offscreen, I could hear just how hollow it sounded, how devoid of emotion and reason. "I'd say this has gone on long enough," was what he said. "Transmission lines are now blocked."

And with that, the screen turned to static.

"Shit…" Dib growled. "Shit, shit, shit, _shit!_ This isn—Gaz!"

I gasped at the same time Dib had called out his sister's name.

She'd frozen. Shaking where she stood, Gaz's skin had paled to a shade of death; her lower jaw was slightly slack, and her eyes, that light brown seeming to be nearly a midnight hue compared to her frozen pallor, stared straight forward at the screen, dry. And then they changed. Very slowly, Gaz's slight shaking turned to a very real and visible trembling, and when I set a hand on her back to try to calm her, I felt heat rise from her spine.

Her eyes flashed green, and narrowed. I heard the click of her teeth as she pursed her lips in anger, and then she let out an anguished wail. Professor Membrane and I each took a couple steps closer, and Dib tried to keep hold of her, but Gaz pushed him away.

"Nobody talk to me!" she screamed. "Nobody fucking talk to me! I'm gonna go figure out how I want to destroy that fucking Tallest!" Gaz whirled and began storming out of the room, slamming the door open into the wall. "I'm going to rip out his eyes and send them through a fucking _meat grinder!_ Sell that fucker's body to science and burn it afterward! I'm going to—"

"Gaz!" the Professor and I called after her.

"Dad," Dib said, turning to the Professor, who himself looked downright broken, "go talk to her, okay? I'll be there in a minute, can you just help calm her down?"

"Dib," said his father, calmly, though his own voice shook somewhat, "this situation affects us all. I—"

"I—I _know,_ Dad, I know." Dib pressed his hands out in front of him, in order to keep himself under control. "Trust me, I know. I just… I've got a lot to figure out, and as much as I want to be out there, I can't, so just please go talk to her, please? Zim, I need you in here with me, too."

"I—"

"It concerns _your robot,_ Zim, you are staying in here with me until we sort this out. Tenn, Skutch, you guys, too. You're all the resources I need right now. Lex," Dib then asked, turning to his girlfriend, who looked as though she'd seen her own father laid out again, "will you be okay to rally up everyone else? Charlotte, Cthulhu and them?"

Lex nodded tersely. Professor Membrane took a glance out into the hallway, then gave his son a wave and took his leave. Gaz could still be heard screaming from down the hall, and I felt my heart sink. What scrap of a heart I had, anyway; I was so confused about that.

While Dib took a moment to console his girlfriend, and speak with her quietly about the situation—and I heard her throw in a few words here and there as well—I stood aside, taking it all in. Wondering how much _he_ knew. How closely _he_ was watching. Either of them, really. The Commander almost seemed like the least of my issues. At least that was an internal battle, and we knew more or less how to deal with him.

GIR was something else entirely. He was the reason Dib, Tenn, my brother and I had to stay in for a continued discussion. GIR knew more than he had ever let on. Possibly more than the little robot had ever really been able to access at all.

Three parts: that's what the Commander had said. 'I' was comprised of three parts: the PAK, the Elite Blade, and the memory disc embedded in GIR. Perhaps it wasn't even his disc at all. Something else from the Commander's PAK? Even as I thought it, I doubted it, though.

"As disturbing as the situation on the _Massive_ right now is," said Dib, very clearly shaken, "we've just got to press forward. There's a lot on all of our plates right now, and for everyone's sake, I'm going to say that we just go ahead and plan to leave for the next battle as soon as we possibly can. Tomorrow, if need be. Fuck, _tonight,_ if need be. No later than two days from now. Guys, we have got to get moving on this."

"I mean, at least we're ready," I offered. "To be honest, Dib, I can't even eat anymore."

"Like, out of nerves or—"

"Like human food."

"Well, that sucks." Dib's eyes narrowed. "You've got a _lot_ going on, there, though, Zim. I'm still trusting you for now, but that PAK of yours is a concern."

"No, trust me," I said, almost desperately. "It's an enemy. I'm an enemy. I don't care how to classify it. My past is a danger to everyone, myself included, and I swear to God, Dib, I am going to do something about it."

"Well, good. Let's start with opening up that memory disc of GIR's." Dib sighed, and added, "I do apologize for not believing you about him. I really should have. He's been the main problem all along."

"He's one of three factors, anyway," I admitted. "There's him, my PAK, and that sword."

"I can wipe the disc now," Skutch offered, shrugging his hands out in front of him. "That could help at least one part of the fight."

"Please do," I said.

"_After,"_ Dib insisted, "we extract everything we need off of it. Whatever GIR is hiding on there is stuff that's going to help us out a lot, I know it."

GIR's chassis lay empty and, to the eyes, broken. Eyes black, body unmoving. His memory disc blinked red as Tenn cautiously picked it up and inserted it into the main body of the large computer station in Dib's control room. All of us were still somewhat reeling from the transmission with Tallest Red.

Everything was getting turned upside-down. That was the only thing that was sure anymore. Dib had a fully prepared army, though. The Agents all knew what to do; everyone had known that this fight was coming, and we were all prepared to take the battle off of Earth at any moment. This was not a sudden move. We had known for a while that it would arise as it had to arise.

We just had a few things to figure out before we could leave. GIR was one of them. He had been a helper unit under the Commander's immediate orders. A weapon. Just as MiMi was now, GIR must once have been a pretty formidable little robot, but just as the Commander's memories had been shattered and his personality drained and re-set in order to give me that life of an Invader (lie or not) that I'd swum through for so long before resolving that I wanted to be human… there were parts of GIR that had been destroyed after the Commander's initial time was up. Both were resurfacing at once, though.

Which, I had a feeling, was exactly what Tak wanted.

"Here we go," Tenn announced, as she keyed in a few codes on the computer in order to access GIR's installed disc. "I'm in."

"Anythin' good?" Skutch wondered, walking directly up beside her.

The screen showed a few different files, illustrated for us as little cylinders. There were rows of cylinders; four rows of five. Some were shaded in black—GIR's empty parts, which had been the functional part of him up until now. Empty and without worry. Others were shaded dark blue.

One was shaded red. And bore the Elite symbol.

"Huh," said Skutch. "That's a no-brainer."

"No kidding," Dib commented. "Open up that one, would you?"

"You got it," Tenn nodded. "It's almost like he wanted us to find this."

"Are, uh… this is a weird question, maybe," I posed, "but are we taking him with us to the _Massive?_ Or the Station, or wherever we end up?"

"Honestly, I think it's better if we do," Dib admitted. "We're just keeping him away from you." Made sense. I nodded to show that I'd comply with the idea. "I don't want anyone here to have to deal with him. I'm leaving Charlotte in charge, and she's got enough to worry about with keeping this place safe to have to deal with GIR, too."

All four of us were holding our breath when Tenn opened up the Elite column of GIR's memory disc. A masochistic part of me was hoping we might find video feeds in there, so that I could start to match up memories. Then again, something told me that I'd be faced with plenty more memories, that I'd come right up close to past events—soon enough. Too soon. Right around the damned corner.

No video feeds. No records. No audio recordings.

Schematics. That was what we found.

Detailed blueprints, all labeled in Irken, flashed up in front of our eyes. I cast a glance over at GIR, as if the empty body would just jump up and attack us for essentially invading his brain. No such thing happened, of course, but I couldn't be too worried about anything now.

"Whazzat say?" Skutch asked, elbowing Tenn as he squinted at the screen.

"You really can't read Irken anymore, huh?" Tenn guessed.

"'S just blobs," Skutch lamented. He held his hands up. "Missin' that program, or somethin'. Just read it."

Tenn rolled her eyes at having been commanded to do anything at all, rather than asked, but that was kind of the way of things with Skutch, so she let it slide. "It's Station Nine," she said.

"Station Nine?" Dib repeated, eyebrows furrowing as he studied the holographic blue schematics that appeared on the screen. "Where Tak is."

"Yeah," I sighed. "Hey, at least now we've got a map of it."

Dib nodded stiffly. He chewed the inside of his cheek as he studied the screen. "The Control Brain center there is probably gonna be a tough one to break through to. Zim, we do need you for that. I think that sword of yours is the Talisman directly attached to that center. Well, either that or Devastis. The Mirror's gotta be the one for the planet…"

"How d'you figure that?" I wondered.

"My mo—Miyuki told me," he said, correcting himself at the last second, though I could not fathom why. "She told us about how there're four places the Brains are stationed, and there's a Talisman protecting each one. Jesus, I can't believe what Red did, though. I just…"

"Well, so long as we've linked that," I offered before he could sink too far into the negatives. Of which there were several.

"Yeah," Dib sighed dismissively. He shook his head and straightened, squaring his shoulders. He hadn't looked at me once while the disc's contents had been in view. Maybe he didn't want to instigate anything in my PAK. Maybe he was getting sick of looking at me again. Maybe he was pissed about me and Gaz again, even though that hadn't seemed a relevant concern in a long time; we'd talked so normally about it. Dib and I had practically become friends. I didn't blame him for mistrusting me again, though. Fuck, I didn't trust myself. And therein lay a huge problem.

I didn't trust myself. I was beginning to hate myself. I already knew what I was most afraid of. And with an imbalance in those three—of course I couldn't actually know love.

No, I had to trust the right things in order for this to work. I had to control and rise above my hatred; that was key. Love itself was an ability I'd always been able to possess, and it was due to this fact that I'd been given a second chance at it; I had to believe that.

Tak had probably figured that out. She damn well knew what the Commander's ability was, and as soon as I had shown signs of feeling it again, she'd seen the potential of bringing him back. Now, Tak herself may not have understood something as complex as love, but she sure as hell understood obsession. Every attack she had plotted, from whatever her dawning moment of realization was, and onward, had been an attempt to bring back her Elite Commander and be in his favor again.

But he couldn't stand her. The added bile that churned in my stomach whenever I so much as thought of her name was proof enough of that. Tak was nothing but an annoyance. She kept getting in the way. Of what, for the Commander, I did not know and was not about to ask my PAK in order to find out, but the important thing was, we had a common enemy in her.

And as much as I despised her, maybe she could be my leverage. Somehow. Use our mutual disagreements about Tak to my advantage, to focus the Commander's bloodlust on something useful. If he had to kill anyone at all. Then again, that could backfire on me pretty easily, and I'd get consumed even worse.

I thought about that for the rest of the day.

Thought about it as we left the control room for the board room, where Lex had indeed gathered Charlotte Baudelaire and the other higher-up Agents. Where Dib would give one last debriefing of events, and we would… well… divide to conquer from there.

Ugh, there was that notion of conquering again. It was just going to follow me around forever. So I had to accept it, and make it fit the life that I was choosing for myself.

My usual seat at the table was beside Gaz, but given her present state, I decided to sit instead between Tenn and Skutch, where I could watch her and communicate silently with her if need be. She looked awful. Her head was bowed, shoulders sagged, hands on the table in front of her. But they were clenched into fists. She was ready to fight. That girl was not going to give up on her family. And I wasn't going to give up on her.

Skutch probably noticed me smile when I came to that realization again about Gaz, and he elbowed me in the ribs. I shot him a warning look, and he just smirked and shrugged. For being so new to human concepts of attraction, he was catching on awfully fast.

He was kind of an idiot in some respects, yes, but beyond helpful in many others. He nudged me again before Dib could start the meeting, and asked, "Yo, bro, could you give me a hand with—heh, I just got that."

"Just got wha—Skutch, that's really inappropriate," I warned him.

"I'm dealin', aren't I?" he shrugged, sliding his gloves on and then holding his wrists out to me. As I helped him fasten the buckles into place, he went on, "Check it, Zim, I've got this _hand_icap, I've got to _hand_ it to you, I—"

"Skutch, how the hell are you finding humor in this?"

"What the fuck should I do, sulk and keep whinin' about it?" he shot back. "Zim, man, I've gotta fuckin' fight. You know? Tak thought she was debili—debli—whatever, beating me down because of this, so I just gotta beat her instead." I'd finished fastening the second buckle, and Skutch took that time to point one accusatory index finger in my face. "So you listen up, bro, and you listen good. You fight that Goddamn PAK of yours if that's the thing you wanna beat. I've been talkin' to pointy-hair—"

"Dib."

"Pointy-Dib, and he knows what he's talkin' about. That guy's a leader."

"Yeah, and I think Red knows that," I sighed. "But what's that got to do with me?"

"He's makin' it so you _can_ go off and fight your own battle, is what I'm saying. Me and Tenn can have the army covered—"

"Excuse me?" Tenn cut in, leaning back in her chair to scrutinize my brother's words.

"Sorry, Tenn and I."

"And you mean mostly me," Tenn corrected.

_"Eeeeeuuuuhhhh…"_ Skutch lay his right hand out flat behind me and tilted it back and forth to indicate, _kind of._ Tenn smacked his arm away and cuffed me upside the head as well, to get us to pay attention to the meeting.

Skutch had brought up a valid point, though, and one I had already been thinking about. Of course I was going to go after this. I'd re-join the primary fight once I had dealt with my own very literal inner demons, but it would play out that I'd probably be going to Station Nine alone.

Dib's plan was almost exactly what I thought it would be, which was honestly a very good thing.

"So," he began, as the only one in the room standing. "This is where it starts, so that it can finally end." Gaz picked her head up somewhat from her seat beside him; their father set his jaw in attention as well. Charlotte took out her laptop to begin keeping notes, while Cthulhu and Bloodrose sat awaiting their own orders. Tenn, Skutch and I represented the army, for now, and I knew that Tenn could keep all of the information any of the three of us needed in her head at all times. Nearby, Lex held a mechanical pencil poised over a blank page of an empty notebook. Very slowly, her hand began to move, and I saw the graphite outline the words, _Final Plan._

God, this really was it.

We were breaking orbit. We were taking the fight into our own hands.

We were going to rise up against the machines, and go to war.

"Tenn," Dib started, nodding over to her. "You're our primary pilot, okay?"

"Done and done," said Tenn. "I'm with you guys all the way on this."

"And I really, really thank you for it. I want the army first deployed on the _Massive,_ with some held back on board for second wave and further," Dib explained. "I'm hopeful that we can take care of the Brains on the _Massive_ first, free—fix… whatever it is we need to do to help Ira Murasaki, and continue from there. The Cabochon's already broken. Next up will be Station Nine and Devastis. Skutch?"

"What's up?" Skutch's head went up like he was a meerkat on alert.

"I need you on board with Tenn, and between the two of you, come up with the best ways to divide up the army," Dib ordered. "Lex?"

"Yes?" his girlfriend said, lifting her eyes. Her hand shook as she held her pencil.

"I'll have you help them out with that decision, and then I want you and you, Dad," Dib went on, turning to his father, "to head the first team out. Can you do that?" Both nodded solemnly. "I trust both of you… all of you…" Dib let out a long sigh. "I trust all of you so much.

"Every single person in this room, please take a look around."

Dib held his arms out to either side, prompting us to do exactly what he had asked. Nobody looked uncertain. We had all seen what Tak's army could do. We had all heard or been filled in on Red's latest announcement. This was a personal fight for everyone at that table.

For those remaining from the days when Professor Membrane ran the Corporation, this was a fight several years in the making. For Lex, this was a fight for her father and her livelihood. For Tenn, this was her resistance against the true problems in the Empire. For Skutch, it was his retaliation against Tak.

For Professor Membrane: his wife, his friends, his children, his work.

For Dib and Gaz: the life and prophecy they were meant to fulfill. The fight Dib had been preparing for his entire life, consciously or otherwise.

For me… the chance to finally, after many, many years, do the right thing. The chance to fight back. To fight properly. To become my own person. To shake myself free from the Empire that had never wanted me.

For all of us, the chance to create a new partnership between two races.

This was going to change more than just our lives. It would open Earth up to intergalactic communication. Possible trade. Sister races, long apart, finally on speaking terms. And this was where it was going to begin.

"I trust every person in this room," Dib repeated. "So should all of you. Are there any objections?" He looked at me specifically. "Any at all?"

I knew that he wanted me to say something, so I stood. Gaz held her breath.

"Can I make a request, rather than an objection?" I asked.

"Say whatever you need to, Zim," Dib told me straightforwardly.

I cleared my throat, and tried not to look at Gaz the entire time I was speaking. After all, I'd get a chance to speak to her before we left. I'd get my last words with her before the battle. I'd see her during the battle. And after. And beyond. That was just the way it had to end.

"I would like to request that I start my own mission on Station Nine."

"ZIM!" Gaz yelped.

"That's just where I know I need to go," I said. "GIR's schematics in his memory disc were pointing me in that direction, and I'm sure that's where Miyuki is waiting with _Osdraken_ now. It's where my PAK's memories were first destroyed, and where I need to face them now."

"Tak is there!" Gaz reminded me. "You need backup!"

I shook my head. "Please, no," I requested. "Let me do this. You'll have to break the barrier to get me in anyway, and once I'm in, Tak will be on the move. Either her or MiMi. Those two aren't going to stay in one place for long, they're going to retaliate and rally their own troops, so Station Nine should be your last concern, but my first.

"I'll come back to the fight once I win my own. Please let me have that mission."

There was silence in the room for a moment, and then Dib solemnly nodded. "That's what I was hoping you would say," he told me. "I have one condition. You take a communicator and get in touch with either Gaz, Tenn, Skutch, my father or myself immediately after your success in that mission. Otherwise, we are going to assume…"

"I understand," I said. My voice came out tersely, and when I sat, both Skutch and Tenn set a hand on my shoulders… very, very lightly, so as not to disturb the slumbering PAK inside. "But I'm going to win."

"That's something I want to hear everyone saying, too," said Dib. "Listen up. We've suffered casualties. We've already counted enough losses. The Swollen Eyeball Corporation represents Earth, and Earth is not going to go down without a fight! We are Irk's sister race, and I for one am not going to let these races be at war forever. We need to win back the reign of that planet for the Irkens themselves, form a bond with a new Empire, and let this be a new kind of victory for Earth, for humans, for everyone we know, trust, and love. Are you with me?"

The applause in the room signaled the affirmative.

We were all in this together.

– – –

After the meeting, as others were rushing around to prepare for the final battle, whether here on the homefront or out of orbit, I caught up with Gaz. Tenn, Skutch, Dib and Lex began prepping the army, and Professor Membrane called his contact in town, that reporter named Danvers I had saved during the Resisty attack, in order to give her the version of the story we could currently have in circulation without much push-back.

Before Gaz and I donned our own uniforms, the light grey jackets bearing the Swollen Eyeball insignia, she pulled me down toward the girls' hallway, paused a moment, then finally tugged me right into her room.

My heart began pounding as we stood there in silence for a moment. She was still trembling, but now with much anticipation for the fight, along with her residual nerves. This was so taxing for all of us. Hopefully we could get some rest in the space travel that was on our immediate horizon (and hopefully I wouldn't die of starvation on the trip, I realized…), and hopefully everything that needed to fall in place for Gaz would. The prophecy was just one part of it. Yes, she had to fulfill her mother's goals, but I wanted her to be the one to free her godfather from the mental cage he'd found himself in, no thanks to the Control Brains. I was still slightly jealous of Ira, sure, but he was an honest man who did not deserve any of the horrible things that had happened to him as a result of Irken selfishness.

Nobody deserved any of that kind of torture. All of us were victims of it, in one way or another. I wanted Professor Haynsworth to wake up; I wanted Skutch to get his just revenge; I wanted Tenn to have the peace she'd been craving; I wanted Gaz and her brother to succeed.

I wanted to be human.

"There's a lot happening all at once, isn't there?" Gaz asked me, almost out of the blue, her voice cracked and unsure.

"That's war, Gaz," I said as calmly as I could, reaching out to stroke back her hair. She winced a little, then finally let me touch her. "But we'll make it through."

"You mean everyone?" she wondered.

"Yeah. In some ways." Holding my own breath, I pulled her in close, then warily wrapped my arms around her and felt her breathe. As if her breath could substitute mine. As if I were stone, and she the wind. Just feel her breezing over me, and memorize that before plunging myself into a battle within my own mind. "And I mean us."

"I'm not asking you to be all chivalrous or anything," she muttered into me. She clung on, all the same.

"I know. But that's just something I want to say, okay? You're my girlfriend."

"Uh-huh," she said, as I kissed the top of her head.

"I love you."

Gaz choked out a slight sob. "Uh-huh."

"And I will always come back for you."

"Please promise that."

"Gaz, I promise," I said, tilting her chin up so that she could look at me directly. "When all of this is over, I'm going to be human."

"You promise."

"I promise."

"You'd _better."_

"I will. I do. I'll win," I told her. "So will you."

"How can you stay so positive?" she mumbled.

"Because," I said, leaning in to touch my forehead to hers, and feel her sigh out as I did, "I know you. And I know you're not going to lie back and let awful things happen if there's something you can do about it."

"So are we kinda in agreement that we fight for ourselves?" she asked, laughing a little.

"Yep," I grinned. "I'm fighting for me. You're fighting for you. I'm fighting for you, and…"

"Same."

"Eh?"

"I'll fight for you, too, Zim, don't act so surprised."

I smiled, and brushed my hand back against her soft skin, and into her feathery hair. "You're a wonderful girl, Gaz," I told her. "No matter what happens, I love you."

Gaz nodded.

And then she grabbed me. Her hands on either side of my face, she guided me down and hauled me into a deep, aggressive, beautiful, life-affirming kiss. I tasted doubt and tried to turn it into hope. We shared our fears, we shared our trepidations, we shared the plans we wanted so desperately to make real. Fiercely, she dove in again, and I gave back everything she offered. Prompted my own. Kissed her again. Held onto her before the world could cave in around us.

When she pulled back, she held my face against hers, and demanded, "Win it. Win, Zim, you have to."

"I will," I said, kissing her lightly again. "I will, I will, so will you, we both will."

"You have to."

"You, too."

"I need you to."

"What?"

Gaz situated me so that our eyes were dead straight on a line. Hers showed a ring of green; emerald Irken green, but full of her own very human flame. "I need you to win. Okay? I don't just want you to. I'm not just asking you to. I need you to."

"So I will." I paused for a second, then slipped her one more light, flowing kiss, my hands both tangled in her lilac-scented violet hair, and told her again for good measure, "I love you."

And that was where the conversation had to end.

A knock came to Gaz's door. We stood together for a moment. Until another knock. And then we stood back, both of us soldiers.

"Be right there," Gaz said.

"You've got two minutes," Tenn's voice came through.

Gaz nodded, and she silently walked to her dresser, where I noticed a first aid kit lying beside her reading lamp. Gingerly, she opened it, took out a rolled-up bandage, and stepped back over to me, to re-do the bandage over my upper right arm. She looked at my raw, decaying skin without cringing, and went as far as to place a kiss on my arm as soon as the bandage was in place.

We then donned our respective uniform jackets, and Gaz opened the door.

"Come on," said Tenn, who had waited patiently in the hall. "Last debriefing before we go."

"Gotcha."

As we followed her outside, and on to the field in which Dib would give his full announcement to the Corporation, Gaz took hold of my hand. I closed my fingers around hers, and touched upon her Tavic ring.

I'd made a promise, and I wasn't going to break it.

This was a fight for everything we cared about, and everything we could be.

At the end of it all, we would try our hardest to be victorious.

At the end of it all, dear God or whatever powers that be… I would earn my soul. I had to. And I could stand right there, hand in hand with Gaz in that very field, neither of us afraid for what would come, my past buried deep in the timeline in which it belonged and no longer a threat to my sanity, our two worlds connected once and for all.

First thing was first, though. I had to win that fight.

Station Nine would not sit silent for long. Before I knew it, I would be on my way there. To challenge my past. To conquer my fear. To be one step closer to my humanity.

– – –

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**To Be Continued**

**in**

**Part Four:**

_**Promises**_

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**Author's Note:**

Oooooh dear, I am so sorry about the lateness of this post! ^^;;;; I have few excuses, but I'll admit that pushing myself back a day did add some laziness and writer's block, so profound apologies, ack….

But I do think it's kind of great that today was Earth Day, ahahahaa… it was something that kept randomly going through my head today. Let's hope Earth Day can be an even bigger celebration for all these guys in the future…

And speaking of the future… here we go! Gosh, the end of Part Three already! This really is my favorite part of the Saga, but… I love Part Four, too. So now I do have to make this a bit bloggy to say a few words about that, since I'm gonna take a pretty long hiatus this time:

I love this Saga. And I am so, so happy to be hearing so much awesome, positive feedback; I started posting this a year ago, and these comments and reviews keep me going so much, and it's really, seriously fantastic to know that people are enjoying this story~ ^^ Thank you so much for reading.

I have been in editing mode for the first couple of Parts, but as I've been learning more about story structure, and diving back into these characters again after leaving the old version of this unedited for so long, I've come to want to re-write and add so much that I hadn't put in before. But these things help the Saga so much that I really want them to be prevalent parts.

So I don't want to rush it. _**I love this story and I am not abandoning it.**_ I just can't keep up with a weekly schedule, and would rather edit this Part all in one go.

So Part Four will begin posting, tentatively, in **mid-June.** I've created a new blog: **the-mandylion-saga (dot) tumblr (dot) com** strictly to kind of keep track of Saga stuff, so if you want to follow/ask stuff/chat, please do! ^^ (My dA is such a lost cause at this point and I love tumblr so much for my other fandoms, I wanted a separate Zim one, haha… It'll go live late tomorrow, 4/23.)

Wow this got really ranty, sorry ^^; (I tend to apologize a lot.) (I am the kind of person to apologize for apologizing so I'm really going to stop now.)

Again, thank you so, so very much for reading this story! I hope you'll return for the finale; I'm going to be putting in much more time on it since I'll be off the weekly schedule, and be able to post it consistently in the later summer and into fall. :3

See you all in a little over a month~! Thank you for sticking with the Saga thus far! ^^

~Jizena

Ahahaha, I just realized Part Four could actually easily be called 'Answers' as well... eeeeee I am really excited about it... ^^

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